SUMMARY / ABSTRACT - INVESTIGATOR DEVELOPMENT CORE The RCMI Cancer and Health Disparities Research Center at Xavier University will continue the development of an Investigator Development Core (IDC) that will focus on enhancing the biomedical and health disparities research capacity of early-stage faculty. The IDC will achieve this goal by providing a pilot project program to develop preliminary data or analyze existing data, along with multiple early career/research development activities through a Research Development Network that will include matching of investigators with collaborators and mentors and the introduction to multiple research resources. These activities will start as soon as new faculty are hired, will continue during pilot project research, and remain as investigators move forward to become research competitive. To accomplish these goals, the IDC will achieve the following two specific aims: Specific Aim 1: To establish a pilot project program focused on early career investigators working in collaboration with an established mentor and/or collaborator to develop research capacity and competitiveness by generating preliminary data or analyzing existing data for submission of external grant applications. The goal of this program is to support early-stage investigators to develop research projects addressing diseases that disproportionately impact minorities or other disparity populations, or that otherwise address health disparities. These pilot projects will be awarded on a competitive basis, may be funded for up to two years of support and will generate preliminary data for the submission of peer reviewed publications and external grant applications. The involvement of minority faculty will be emphasized and encouraged. This program will require mentors/collaborators to be active participants in the pilot research process as well as resulting publications and grant applications. The accomplishment of this aim will result in more early-stage faculty at Xavier obtaining high quality preliminary data or performing significant analysis of existing data and publications that will be incorporated into an increased number of competitive external grant applications being submitted. Specific Aim 2. To coordinate and implement training and mentoring activities focused on increasing the research competitiveness of early-stage investigators. The establishment of a Research Development Network will link early-stage investigators to mentors and collaborators as well as the resources of the Xavier RCMI program and other resources at Xavier and the region with the single goal of building strong collaborative research projects that will be competitive for achieving external funding. A particular effort will be made to develop minority faculty. Accomplishment of this aim will result in more early-stage investigators at Xavier participating in mentored collaborations involving established researchers, more pilot applications, more high-quality pub...