Month in the Research Nexus leads to grant for TL1-KL2 research team

Each year, the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute offers “Month in the Research Nexus,” a required course for biomedical science graduate students in the SCTR TL1 Predoctoral Research Training Program and M.D./Ph.D. students in the Medical Science Training Program (MSTP) at the Medical University of South Carolina. In the month-long class led by Carol Wagner, M.D., and Perry Halushka,M.D., Ph.D., students design a clinical/translational research project from beginning to end, including writing the grant that could fund the project.

TL1 trainee Joseph Karam, who took the course during the Fall 2021 semester, can certainly attest to its value. He found out last month that he and his collaborator, Toros Dincman,M.D., Ph.D., an early-career investigator in the SCTR KL2 (K12) Multidisciplinary Scholars Program in Clinical and Translational Science, had received a small grant from the Fred J. Brotherton Charitable Foundation for the project he designed in the class. That, in combination with future plans to apply for additional funding from Hollings Cancer Center, will provide Karam and Dincman with a budget to gather preliminary data for their work on pancreatic cancer.

“Their project highlights the unique aspects of the TL1 training program and the KL2 scholar program, which are now very well integrated,” said Halushka. “It is an exemplar of what we’re trying to do.”