# A Mentoring Program in Patient-Oriented Tobacco Dependence and Implementation Science Research

> **NIH NIH K24** · UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · 2024 · $196,426

## Abstract

Despite progress over the past 50 years in lowering the rate of smoking, tobacco use remains the leading cause
of premature death in the US. To ensure the sustained and impactful research dedicated to addressing tobacco
use, rigorous inter-disciplinary mentoring programs are needed to prepare the next generation of researchers
committed to patient-oriented research (POR) in this area. I have led a successful research program focused on
testing methods to improve the use and effectiveness of treatments for tobacco for 21 years. For the first cycle
of my K24, my primary mentorship goal was to train in mentorship and to formalize and enhance the mentoring
activities that I had been engaged in from 2001-2017 into a structured, consistent, and comprehensive mentoring
program in tobacco POR for students, fellows, and junior faculty. With K24 support over the past 4 years, I
provided training to 21 new mentees, yielding 50 papers with mentees and 7 papers under review or in revision
(>230 total by mentees) and 32 grants, including 5 Ks and 11 R01s, 3 as a New Investigator PI, compared to 25
mentees, 34 publications with mentees, and 2 Ks and 2 R01s in the preceding 17 years. For the first cycle of the
K24, my primary research goal was to augment my tobacco POR by building expertise in implementation
science through training and by pilot testing use of the nicotine metabolite ratio (NMR) – a genetically-informed
biomarker of nicotine metabolism rate – for personalizing tobacco treatment as an implementation strategy to
increase use of tobacco treatments. K24 support over the past 4 years, led to six new grants in tobacco and
implementation science, 4 focused on testing the NMR in clinical practice: HIV care, primary care, and in-patients
(R01 CA243914; U54 GM104941; P50 CA244690; R01 HG012670; SAP#4100083101; R01 DA056050). I
leveraged this research in implementation science to augment my mentoring by serving as faculty on two national
implementation science training programs – NCI's Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation
Research in Cancer and Washington University at St. Louis's Institute for Implementation Science Scholars –
and by serving as co-chair for the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative's Implementation Science Working Group.
In this renewal, I will: 1) sustain the mentoring program in tobacco and implementation science POR that I
established with the first K24 cycle, using a structured, comprehensive, and individualized approach for an
additional 15 mentees; and 2) augment our tobacco and implementation science POR by conducting a pilot
study to develop messages informed by behavioral economics for HIV+ patients and infectious disease clinicians
that are related to intention to refer for (clinician) or engage with (patient) tobacco use treatment and then test
the impact of these messages integrated into the electronic health record as implementation science strategies
to increase actual referral for and engagement in tobacco t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10807062
- **Project number:** 5K24DA045244-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
- **Principal Investigator:** Robert Adam Schnoll
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $196,426
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-03-01 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10807062

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10807062, A Mentoring Program in Patient-Oriented Tobacco Dependence and Implementation Science Research (5K24DA045244-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10807062. Licensed CC0.

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