International Clinical Research Fellows Program(ICRF), USA

August 27, 2010

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Clinical Research Fellows-one-year clinical research training program

Job Description: The Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars-Fellows Support Center at the Vanderbilt University Institute for Global Health (VIGH) is pleased to announce a one-year clinical research training program (July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012), for persons in clinical residencies, post-residency clinical fellowships, in other health-related post-doctoral programs, and/or within three years of their last major degree training (e.g., registrar, residency, fellowship, doctoral program). Persons eligible for the program must be from low, lower middle, and upper middle income countries (as listed by the World Bank at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lending-groups)) or must be citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. This program is sponsored by the Fogarty International Center (FIC) and several collaborating institutes and centers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is managed by VIGH.

The ICRF Program supports one year of mentored clinical research only in a low- or middle-income country (LMIC) setting. Nations categorized as high-income by the World Bank are not eligible as training sites, nor are applicants from those countries, with the exception of U.S. citizens. Applicants for the fellowship must develop a collaborative research proposal with an eligible institution overseas.

Note to Students: The ICRF is a post-doctoral program and is complementary, but not overlapping with the International Clinical Research Scholars (ICRS) Program for health science students (doctoral). Information on the scholars program for health science students (rather than the post-doctoral or clinical fellow focus of ICRF described here) can be found on the Support Center webpage: www.fogartyscholars.org/scholars. Students are not eligible for this ICRF program unless they otherwise meet the ICRF requirements listed above.
Purpose of the Fellowship

The purpose of this program is to support a one-year mentored research fellowship for clinical investigators studying diseases and conditions in LMICs and to build global health research capacity.

Objectives of the 2011-2012 Fellowship Program

• To develop appropriate training placements with experienced mentorship for research and career development in global health

• To foster established and burgeoning institutional, educational, and research collaborations of benefit to the NIH and LMIC partners

• To support the training interests of the ICRF co-funding partners (NIH institutes and centers) within a spectrum of geographical and topic area diversity

• To address the threat of emerging infectious diseases and importance of chronic disease issues that transcend borders through cross-national training experiences and partnerships
Funding Partners & Eligible Topics

The following NIH institutes partner with the FIC to fund ICRF through VIGH:

Office of AIDS Research

National Cancer Institute

National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

National Eye Institute

National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases

Funding is available for clinical research related to, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Infectious diseases. HIV/AIDS-related conditions and other infectious diseases including STDs, tuberculosis, opportunistic infections, opportunistic malignancies or behavioral research including substance (drug and/or alcohol) use.

• Cancer. Oncology, radiation therapy, physiology, and other cancer-related issues, including HIV-related oncology research.

• Diseases of the heart, vessels, lungs, and blood, including blood resources and sleep disorders.

• Ophthalmology and any eye-related research.

• The causes, treatment, and prevention of arthritis, rheumatic diseases, and other musculoskeletal and skin diseases. These diseases found in HIV/AIDS populations are also of interest.

• Mental disorders. Basic, clinical, and translational research to advance understanding of the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders.

Eligibility to Apply

Persons in health-related disciplines (human or animal) such as medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, optometry, and others who have completed post-doctoral programs and are qualified to do clinical research are invited to apply. Eligibility requirements are specific to citizenship as specified below.

Citizens of the United States or its territories or possessions, or persons lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.

* Applicants must be engaged in clinical or residency programs or in post-residency fellowships, in post-doctoral level training programs (post-docs) , or within 3 years of completion of their last major training

* Resident aliens must include their green card number in their application.

Citizens of any nation exclusive of high-income countries (see World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-lending-groups ).

* Must apply within 3 years of completing their last training (registrarship, residency, fellowship, or PhD)
* Persons from LMICs who are neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents must apply in partnership with one of our approved fellow sites (http://www.fogartyscholars.org/fellows/sites)
* Must have at least one US-institution-based mentor included in the proposed research.

Citizens of high-income countries other than the United States are not eligible for this fellowship.

International Training Sites

Sites were pre-approved as suitable for ICRF in a site competition completed in 2008, and several new sites have been added subsequently (see http://www.fogartyscholars.org/fellows/sites). If one of these sites is selected for collaboration, no site component of the ICRF application is needed other than a letter of support. We encourage prospective applicants to consider them as research venues.

However, American/permanent resident applicants may apply for placement at a site that has not been pre-approved. In this case, they must complete the site component of the application for the site that has not been pre-approved. To be eligible to host ICRF fellows, sites must be recipients of U.S. government research or evaluation support and must have a standing Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Federal Wide Assurance (FWA) as documented in good standing as of February 1, 2011 at the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) website (http://ohrp.cit.nih.gov/search/).
Applicant Selection

Applications are received by the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health. VIGH evaluates the applications through an independent scientific review. Applicants considered meritorious by the initial review of applications are interviewed by a second group of reviewers, by telephone. The Vanderbilt-organized review considers issues of potential conflicts of interests of reviewers and other key issues following guidelines of the NIH Center for Scientific Review. The Principal Investigator at the Support Center at VIGH serves as the administrator for these reviews, but does not vote on proposals.

Application Closing Date: Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time

Further Fellowship Information and Application

Scholarship Tags: Clinical Research, Health sciences, International, Postdoctoral, USA