T32 scholars and Jayne Fulkerson

Major grants received for CTSI T32 Program

The CTSI T32 Program has received two major grants from the National Institutes of Health. These are five-year awards amounting to more than $4 million total and Jayne Fulkerson, PhD, co-director of CTSI's Research Education, Training, and Career Development (CTSI-Ed), is the PI on both grants.

These awards are linked to the $53.9 million in CTSA funding CTSI received in September, along with the $5.3 million grant received for our K12 program (PI: David Ingbar, MD) in January. 

The four awards function as a coordinated set of programs with shared vision, overarching goals, and joint leadership and activities, and will allow us to pursue related supplemental funding opportunities in the future. 

About our T32 awards

These T32 awards allow us to offer extensive training for postdoctoral and predoctoral trainees and are part of our broader mission to cultivate a robust, diverse clinical and translational science workforce. The T32 program is directed by Jayne Fulkerson, PhD, professor, School of Nursing, and affiliate professor, School of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. Angela Panoskaltsis-Mortari, PhD, professor, Medical School, Blood and Marrow Transplantation Division, and vice chair of research, Department of Pediatrics, is the T32 program's associate director.

Specifically, the awards will fund our CTSI T32 Program, a full-time, two-year training opportunity that integrates a research experience with mentors trained in evidence-based mentoring and an individualized curriculum. Unlike other fellowships, the program focuses on translational science and includes professional career development activities focused on team-based science and effective collaboration and communication with the larger community.

Now that the awards are in-hand, we will soon announce the program’s first cohort: eight predoctoral and four postdoctoral scholars who hail from six UMN schools and colleges and whose research covers a broad spectrum of translational science from basic and preclinical to clinical and public health projects. They applied to the program several months ago, with the understanding that the program would not begin until we received our NIH funding.

Because this program is now supported through NIH’s T32 funding mechanism (not the TL1 mechanism as with our previous CTSA grant), we have made a slight change to the name of our program. Our Translational Research and Career Training (TRACT) TL1 program is now the CTSI T32 Program. The program's mission and commitment to supporting scholars remain unchanged.

The award starts July 1 and runs through June 30, 2029.