Research Environment

STRATEGY 3:

A vibrant environment for basic, clinical and translational research pertaining to breast cancer. 

TTUHSC has designed a course on research methodology that is presented by the office of faculty development. The fellows have access to these resources including the “Clinical Research Institute”. These resources are available on-line and cover Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Basic and Translational Methods, IRB procedures and Grant writing. The fellow will be required to take the Human Subject Protection course and pass test to be certified within the first week of fellowship. 

TTUHSC has an exciting program on clinical and translational research with several labs and expert mentors focusing on breast cancer risk and metastatic potential and drug development. The fellow will have a unique opportunity to participate in these projects. Whereas it is not possible to complete a prospective study in one year along with all the other objectives; these venues provide a unique opportunity to learn methodologies such as banking, cell cultures, and other techniques. These are not mandatory requirements for all fellows. The BCE maintains prospective database on demographics and clinical outcomes of all breast cancer patients by a dedicated research nurse who actively participates in all tumor boards and research protocols to maintain integrity and accuracy of all data. This provides an opportunity to the fellow for clinical outcomes research. The center maintains accreditation with the National Accreditation Program, which requires yearly quality improvement studies – fellow is expected to be involved in at least one of the 2 quality Improvement studies. We expect at least 2 abstract submissions every year by the fellow to major national/regional meetings.

By the end of fellowship training the fellow is expected to have at least 1 accepted publications.