# Core 01: Professional Development Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · LSU PENNINGTON BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CTR · 2022 · $1,118,572

## Abstract

Project Summary: Professional Development Core 
 Louisiana citizens experience significantly higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes/obesity, and 
cancer with significant disparities between subgroups of citizens. Unfortunately, there are 
not adequate numbers of investigators proficient in Clinical and Translational Research to address and diminish 
these health disparities. The overall objective of the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science (LA CaTS) 
Center Professional Development Core (PD Core) is to educate and train early-career and senior academic 
faculty state-wide to pursue clinical/translational research focused on improving health outcomes and reducing 
health disparities in Louisiana. The PD Core provides a degree-granting training program for early-career faculty 
(Scholars), a Masters in Clinical Research (MSCR), which provides mentorship, and access to a variety of 
educational research resources to aid Scholars from different health professions throughout the state. The PD 
Core research plans are based on the following specific aims: (1) further develop and refine programs that 
support clinical/translational research training, mentoring, and career development, and build a network of early 
career trainees that specifically supports under-represented groups in the biomedical workforce, (2) create, 
provide, and coordinate accessible resources to aid faculty and trainees in developing, initiating, executing, 
analyzing, and disseminating clinical/translational research and (3) facilitate and enhance Equity, Diversity, and 
Inclusion (EDI) initiatives and training within our multi-institution statewide research community. The PD Core 
will implement the research plan by providing an academic “home”, the Roadmap Scholar Program, a 75% 
protected-time training period over two years that provides clinical and translational research training tailored 
to Scholars with a wider range of research experience (e.g., students to postdoctoral fellows) and from different 
professional disciplines (e.g., medicine, nursing, public health, social work). This cross-institutional structured 
approach has been developed to include collaborating LA CaTS institutions throughout the state of 
Louisiana. The PD Core plans to provide training and research resources, including courses in the 
MSCR curriculum on-site and by Distance Learning, access to a centralized clinical trial enrollment center, the 
state-wide virtual biorepository resource, and “team science” projects focused on health disparities and disease 
outcomes which promote research team collaborations. Distance Learning is key in providing Scholars access 
to all PD Core resources; therefore, a centralized compendium of MSCR courses and research tool kits will be 
provided via an asynchronous system. Overall, the PD Core intends to recruit, educate, and train Scholars from 
various health care disciplines and underrepresented groups (including a new scholar position specif...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10666922
- **Project number:** 2U54GM104940-07
- **Recipient organization:** LSU PENNINGTON BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** VIVIAN A FONSECA
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $1,118,572
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 2012-08-15 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10666922

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10666922, Core 01: Professional Development Core (2U54GM104940-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10666922. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*