Nancy Pearson, Ph.D. on
"Training of Conventional and CAM Investigators"
on Wednesday, May 16, 2001

This section is compiled by Frank M. Painter, D.C.
Send all comments or additions to:    Frankp@chiro.org

Presenter:   Nancy Pearson, Ph.D.
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NIH

DR. PEARSON:   Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for inviting Dr. West and myself to participate in this panel.

During the next several minutes, we would like to briefly describe NCCAM's training initiatives for conventional and CAM investigators. I will describe NCCAM's National Research Service Award program, or NRSA, for research training, Dr. West will describe NCCAM's Career Development Award programs.

NCCAM's ability to achieve its research goals is dependent on the availability of a critical mass of skilled investigators, both from the CAM and the conventional research communities. These goals are consistent with the NRSA program. To quote from an NRSA announcement, "Congress enacted the NRSA, or National Research Service Act program in 1974 to help ensure that highly trained scientists will be available in adequate numbers and in appropriate research areas to carry out the nation's biomedical and behavioral research agenda."

It is under this congressional authority that NCCAM awards individual and institutional NRSA training grants. Through the NRSA awards, NCCAM is committed to providing funds for high-quality, mentored research training experience for both pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students who are interested in pursuing a career in CAM research.

Funding through NRSA research training grants are available both to CAM practitioners who wish to gain knowledge and experience to conduct rigorous research in their field, and to conventional researchers and practitioners who wish to increase their knowledge and experience in specific CAM research areas.

To do high-quality research that will advance the CAM field and make a significant impact on the health care system, both CAM practitioners and more conventional investigators need the same rigorous research training. They need to acquire knowledge of CAM, but in combination with a strong grounding in those disciplines necessary to do high-quality, clinical, and basic research.

One useful paradigm for training students in CAM is to include CAM-trained practitioners and researchers as part of the training faculty, so they can bring their important, unique perspective, philosophy, and experience to the training.

During the first year of funding, which was Fiscal Year 1999, NCCAM spent 1.3 percent of its budget on training. Training is defined here as the combination of NRSA awards and career development awards. In Fiscal Year 2000, it increased that to 3.8 percent of the NCCAM budget. During this fiscal year, that is 2000, NCCAM funded seven NRSA individual pre-doctoral fellowships, two NRSA individual post-doctoral fellowships, and two NRSA institutional training grants.

These two NCCAM institutional training grants, which support a total of 12 trainees, combine broad-based research training, both in CAM and basic scientific methodologies, necessary to perform high-quality research in any scientific area. NCCAM also has committed funds to support fellows on five institutional training grants sponsored by other institutes and agencies, and these are called co-pays.

In addition to these official training mechanisms, research training also occurs in our funded research centers in RO-1 grants, as you heard in the last session.

While many of the NRSA awardees come from conventional research and educational backgrounds, these NRSA training programs have begun to attract trainees with degrees, for example, in traditional Chinese medicine and chiropractic.

The research and investigations these students or fellows are pursuing are wide-ranging and cover many different CAM modalities. These range from research on herbal remedies to treating various disease conditions, to investigations of the social processes that lead to the use of alternative medicine therapies to treat HIV, to studies of the effect of static magnetic fields on fibromyalgia.

We anticipate that the NRSA training portfolio will continue to grow in 2001. This growth will include the awarding of two more NRSA institutional training grants and additional NRSA individual pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellowship awards. NCCAM has also issued a request for applications and made available money to fund minority researchers.

In conclusion, we feel that by providing a wide range of training initiatives, we can encourage maturation of the whole field.

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