Translational Research in Cardiometabolic Disease

We are requesting support for three students/year based on our success engaging medical students in research. The Department of Physiology and the Georgia Regents University (GRU) faculty have rich tradition of quality research training for medical and graduate students. Because of the close interactions between the physiology faculty, the Department of Medicine, the Georgia Prevention Center and the Diabetes and Obesity Discovery Institute (DODI), health science trainees interact with basic and clinical research oriented faculty. Since 2001, approximately 85 medical and Pharm D students have received research training even without dedicated training funds, which resulted in more than 65 peer reviewed publications and numerous presentations at regional and national meetings. GRU has been the recipient of this prestigious AHA training grant since 2011. An important opportunity for all GRU medical students is their elective time during the first two years that can be used for either didactic courses or research experience. Many medical students have performed research for elective credit, which has given them a brief research experience and stimulated interest in more extensive research fellowships for the summer months. Others enter research programs by volunteering for laboratory work to obtain research experience. These students form an important and accessible pool from which applicants for these AHA fellowships will be drawn. In the last four years of funding, we easily filled the available AHA HSF slots with 'overflow' students being redirected to GRU faculty outside the HSF program. This increased the number of students benefited by the AHA HSF program by expanding the number of students engaged in productive summer research opportunities. We will continue with our approach of recruiting first or second year medical students and in this cycle 17 faculty members with an outstanding array of choices from clinical or basic research arenas are participating. Dr. Adviye Ergul will serve as the Program Director. Students supported by this program will have exciting translational research opportunities. In turn, this program will enhance our rapidly growing national profile in cardiovascular, renal, hypertension and obesity research and continue our established tradition of bringing exciting research opportunities to our medical student and health science trainees, a key mission of AHA. (AHA Program: Medical Student Research Fellowship)