By Paul Marantz, M.D., M.P.H.
While the various ICTR educational and training and career development programs all focus on the individual learner, trainee, and awardee, they also serve the mission of institutional capacity-building in translational science. What follows describes a research shop that is a poster child to demonstrate the underlying potential of this approach has reached a new plateau with the most recent class of students in our PhD in Clinical Investigation (PCI) and Scholars brought into our CTSA-sponsored career development program (KL2/K12). While our programs are always looking forward, this description involves some history – and since that largely depends on one person’s memory, I have attached a byline to this particular story.
Joe Verghese, M.B.B.S., M.S.
Our M.S.-degree-granting program entered its first Scholars in the summer of 1998; and in the lead-up to this start, I addressed the relevant organizational units to explain what this novel program was trying to do and to generate interest and identify candidates. When I presented the idea to the Department Chairs, I remember the then-Chair of Neurology coming up to me after the meeting to say, “I’ve got the perfect person for this program, but he won’t be in a position to join your program until next year”; and he followed through on this the next year when he encouraged Dr. Joe Verghese to enroll in the CRTP. Joe immediately showed his unique and special talents as a member of the CRTP’s second cohort (the Class of 2001), and has become a key institutional leader in aging research – identifying the Motoric Cognitive Risk Syndrome , building a well-funded research program, and identifying and mentoring an interdisciplinary team of researchers to expand this work. (The uniquely cross-cutting nature of Joe’s work is reflected in the fact that he now leads an academic division that spans two departments – Neurology and Medicine – a highly unusual if not unique cross-department collaboration.)
Many of Joe’s mentees have gone on to become highly productive investigators and mentors in their own rights; for this story I will highlight Dr. Helena Blumen , whose professional identity as a cognitive psychologist brings an important perspective to this work. Much of Helena’s work relates neuroradiographic features of the brain with both gait and cognitive disorders. Helena is an “independent investigator” in the best sense of the term: she runs her own research program but remains an active contributor to the transdisciplinary research program described above. It is Helena who is serving as the primary mentor, with Joe serving as co-mentor, to these new trainees:
Helena M. Blumen, Ph.D., M.S.
PCI: among our newest PhD students in PCI is Ms. Natalie Delpratt. Natalie came to our PhD program with a background in bioengineering (at both the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels) and with an expressed interest in imaging science. As Natalie rotated through various labs as a first year graduate student, she was drawn to Helena’s work and to the unique and diverse research team Helena leads; she declared in the PCI concentration and chose Helena as her mentor.
KL2/K12: while this CTSA (NIH/NCATS) -funded career development program has always sought to support doctorally-prepared investigators from all health professions, and has supported pharmacists and psychologists among other professionals, our first-ever nurse-investigator joined our program in July 2022. This became a reality when the Montefiore Department of Nursing recruited Dr. Una Hopkins to serve as the department’s first Director of Nursing Research. Una, who had received her own DNP training at Pace University, introduced us to the directors of Pace’s PhD in Nursing program, and it was through them that we met Chava Pollack, RN, PhD, whose research interest in aging and quality of life represented a great fit with Einstein’s research strengths. She also (independent of Natalie) identified Helena as the ideal mentor to guide her work, and the research team led by Helena and Joe as the perfect environment for her to develop her career as a nurse-investigator.