ABSTRACT INVESTIGATOR DEVELOPMENT CORE The etiology of the broad spectrum of health disparities suffered by minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations in the United States is complex and multifactorial. Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) has worked toward increasing its core of health disparity researchers for years. Developing well-trained basic, clinical, and behavioral research faculty with an in-depth understanding of racial and ethnic health disparities allows minority institutions such as CDU to take leadership in these critical areas. The AXIS Center has been focused on supporting this goal in the last 15 years, with measurable success in establishing a cohort of young faculty who advanced in their academic appointments, secured independent funding, and increased their productivity and quality regarding the number of citations and impact factor of publications. The mentoring program established by AXIS Professional Development and Pilot Project Core (1st funding cycle) has increased faculty productivity in journals, grant submissions, and funding. The trainees received training grants (KL2, R03, Pilots) and research grants such as R01-level projects funded through various NIH programs (NCI, NIMHD, NIA, NIGMS). In the next 5 years, the Investigator Development Core (IDC) will continue building an environment supporting early career stage investigators (ESIs) and Post-Doctoral Fellows (PDFs) to conduct their research projects focused on reducing health disparities that either generate preliminary data for subsequent submission of grant applications and/or results in a peer-reviewed research publication. In the next 5 years, IDC will continue building on the 15 years of success in training and supporting ESIs and PDFs career development at CDU. The proposed Aims will be achieved by leveraging the Administrative Core, Community Engagement Core (CEC), Research Capacity Core (RCC), and collaboration with other RCMI institutions and the NIMHD program. The three Aims are designed to complement each other for sustaining and increasing CDU ESI's overall research competitiveness in biomedical, behavioral, and clinical sciences with a focus on health disparity and enhancing the success of ESIs in seeking extramural funding from the government (e.g., the K- or R-series awards from NIH).