Duke-MSU STAR Program Partnership

Children are at high risk of catastrophic drug-related adverse events. The unique and changing physiology of children prevents successful extrapolation of data from older patients. The research focus of our team is to determine optimal dosing, safety, and efficacy of drugs to improve child health. To achieve this goal, our research group mentors and trains young investigators in high-quality pediatric clinical research methods.

Our Summer Training in Academic Research Program (STAR), supported by NICHD since 2013, is housed at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) in Durham, NC. STAR is a vibrant summer community of ~30 trainees and eight core faculty. Unique strengths of our program are:

• National recognition: >800 students applied for a position in the program last year;
• Diversity: >50% of the trainees are from racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession, from underserved/rural areas, or both;
• Productivity: >95% of program participants since 2013 are authors on a peer-reviewed publication indexed in PubMed.

The STAR program for rural and underserved communities is a partnership between Duke University and Montana State University (MSU-Bozeman) and its medical school program sponsored by the University of Washington School of Medicine designed to provide medical education for citizens of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho (WWAMI). Please note that for 2024-2025, eligible applicants for the Duke-Montana State partnership are:

• Undergraduates from MSU;
• Medical students in the WWAMI TRUST (Targeted Rural Underserved Track) program.

The DCRI, MSU, and Montana WWAMI will jointly recruit the trainees. Project teams include 4–6 trainees; each project team is assigned an early-career faculty mentor and receives oversight from a senior faculty member of the DCRI Pediatrics research group.

Teams will assemble (remotely) in the spring and will complete background reading and planning for the summer. The trainees will travel to the DCRI for one week for clinical shadowing, in-person team-building, and an introduction to the program.* This will be followed by instruction and hands-on skills acquisition that will occur in a hybrid approach. This will be an intense in-person mentorship experience with DCRI faculty. Each team will complete a small research project through which trainees will learn advanced clinical research methods and obtain skills for their future careers as scientists. DCRI and MSU/WWAMI faculty will partner to provide mentorship, advice, and guidance whereby there is both face-to-face and remote support provided at all times.

A strength of the proposed program is its link to the Pediatric Trials Network (PTN). The PTN initiates multiple projects each month that are led by trainees and directly relate to the practical research experiences offered in the proposed program. Trainees will present the results of their work to DCRI research faculty and (via video conference) to MSU/WWAMI faculty. Throughout the program, the trainees will also undertake rigorous didactics in research methods and medical writing through short courses, small group sessions, and 1:1 tutoring to complement the practical summer research experience.