PROGRAM SUMMARY The number of physician-scientists working in lung cancer has not kept pace with the overall growth of the medical research community or with the growth in our basic knowledge base, resulting in an increasing number of unrealized basic and translational research opportunities. Yale is uniquely suited to helping rebuild this base with our strong commitment to translational research. The Career Enhancement Program (CEP) of the Yale SPORE in Lung Cancer (YSILC) has been designed to contribute substantively to ongoing efforts and new initiatives attempting to address this problem. The goal of the CEP is to educate a new generation of investigators committed to translational research in lung cancer. The CEP has substantial institutional commitment, both in terms of funding and infrastructure. For example, our translational research office at Yale (also led by Dr. Herbst, YSILC PI) has been committed to providing early seed funding and translational support to young investigators early in their research careers. Potential CEP candidates include promising junior faculty who are interested in establishing their careers in translational lung cancer research and/or established investigators whose previous research has been in other areas and would like to transition into lung cancer focused research. Junior faculty awardees will be paired with mentors who are more established lung cancer investigators with a documented record of successful mentoring. In this way, the YSILC will stimulate the development of the next generation of physician scientists, addressing the most challenging issues in lung cancer research.