Utah Pediatric Clinical Pharmacology Training Program

This is an initial T32 submission by the University of Utah Division of Clinical Pharmacology to the NICHD-sponsored Clinical Pharmacology Training Network (CPTN). The goal of the CPTN training programs is to ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics. Pediatric and maternal pharmacologists are urgently needed because the majority of drugs prescribed to children and pregnant and lactating individuals lack dosing information specific to these populations. The lack of evidence-based dosing results in off-label prescribing and places these populations at risk for treatment failures and toxicities. These outcomes can be avoided with innovative clinical drug studies. Design and interpretation of these studies requires trained pediatric and maternal pharmacologists. Properly trained pediatric and maternal clinical pharmacologists are indispensable for their ability to integrate basic and clinical science including trial design, epidemiology, biostatistics, biomarker qualification and standardization; disease- specific biomarker development; novel clinical trial design and endpoints; and bioinformatics. At present there is a shortage of scientists who have formal training in pediatric and maternal clinical pharmacology. The goal of the Utah Pediatric and Maternal Clinical Pharmacology T32 Fellowship Program is to develop clinician- and PhD-scientists who will be leaders in the field of pediatric and maternal clinical pharmacology research. This will be accomplished by providing training and experience in the methods and conduct of basic and clinical drug research in the different phases of pediatric drug development and fostering interaction with pediatric subspecialists to address deep knowledge gaps in pediatric therapeutics. We will leverage the resources of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology in the Department of Pediatrics (expertise in pediatric clinical pharmacology), the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (expertise in maternal pharmacology), the Department of Population Health Sciences (expertise in pharmacoepidemiology), and the College of Pharmacy (expertise in assay development and the mechanistic methods that inform clinical pharmacology studies). We have an excellent team of 22 established and emerging mentors who will support up to 3 postdoctoral positions per year. The T32 fellowship leverages the infrastructure of the existing American Board of Clinical Pharmacology- accredited Utah Clinical Pharmacology Fellowship Program. The T32 fellowship will combine expert mentorship with rigorous training in the principles of clinical pharmacology, quantitative skills, clinical trials, regulatory affairs, and writing and presentation. Training will include a mix of didactic coursework and practical training. Each fellow will have their own primary project and be integrated into multiple other projects. At the end of the two-year training, each fellow will have answered an important clinical question in pediatric or maternal pharmacology, have 5-10 publications, have submitted one grant, and will be ready to submit a mentored K-level grant. Project Number: 1T32HD114565-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) | Principal Investigator: Kevin Watt (+1 co-PI) | Institution: UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, SALT LAKE CITY, UT | Award Amount: $190,163 | Activity Code: T32 | Study Section: Special Emphasis Panel[ZHD1 DSR-R (90)] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1T32HD11456501A1