PROVIDENCE – The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $1.2 million, five-year grant to a doctor at The Miriam Hospital to develop an advanced training and mentoring program for minority postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty members focusing on HIV/AIDS.
The grant, awarded to Dr. Timothy Flanigan, director of infectious diseases at the Miriam, is geared to the African-American community and involves a multidisciplinary collaboration between researchers in behavioral medicine, infectious diseases and community health.
Along with the Miriam, participating institutions include The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and three historically black colleges and universities: Jackson State University and Tougaloo College, both in Mississippi, and Dillard University in New Orleans.
“This grant is an honor and speaks volumes about The Miriam Hospital’s national reputation as a leader in HIV research and treatment as well as our ability to train and cultivate the next generation of clinical research investigators,” said Flanigan, the principal investigator for the project and a professor of medicine at Alpert Medical School, in a news release.
Program participants will work closely with mentors to develop their own research projects focused on HIV prevention, with an emphasis on substance abuse, mental illness and prison settings, all of which are associated with high rates of HIV/AIDS. Mentors will also help trainees learn how to obtain independent research funding.
The program will accept five trainees per year, with a two-year commitment required. After a summer of classroom work, trainees will be paired with mentors and begin working on their research projects. In the summer after their first year, they’ll go through a six-week independent study and an intensive mentoring experience, then work on their projects for another year. Each trainee is expected to submit a research abstract, manuscript and/or NIH grant proposal at the end of the program.
Trainees will work at the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center for AIDS Research, The Miriam Hospital Immunology Center, the Brown Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies and the Lifespan/Brown Substance Abuse Treatment Unit.
“Few minority students pursue clinical research careers, even though the incidence of HIV and AIDS continues to rise at a disproportionately high rate in minority communities,” said Flanigan. “Minority researchers have an intimate understanding of the issues in their own cultures and communities that can influence HIV prevention efforts. If we hope to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities, like HIV and AIDS, we must increase the number of minority investigators conducting independent research in these areas.”
The Miriam Hospital, part of the Lifespan health system, is affiliated with The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and is home to one of 18 designated Center for AIDS Research sites. It is a leader in the treatment, research and prevention of HIV/AIDS, and its Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine attract nearly $14 million in federal research funding annually to address the leading lifestyle causes of disease burden and death. For more information, go to www.miriamhospital.org.
