DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Dr. Wand is a neuroendocrinologist trained in both preclinical and clinical investigation. He works with a multidiscipline team and has acquired hormonal, neurochemical, genetic and human and rodent laboratory skills to pursue his research agenda. Currently Dr. Wand is principle investigator of 4 studies: 2 R01s, 1R03 and a R37 (no cost extension). He is also co- investigator on 6 other R01 awards. Dr. Wand has successfully been the scientific mentor for 16 MD and PhD trainees over the last 12 years. Three of his trainees received K23 awards on their first submission. All 16 trainees are in academics with their own funding or work in health policy positions. Dr. Wand has received awards for mentoring and Johns Hopkins University's highest award for bringing diversity to its training programs. Dr. Wand proposes to initially mentor 5 trainees. He anticipates mentoring approximately 2 additional trainees per year for the life of the award. He participates in multiple programs providing ample opportunities to identify promising trainees to mentor. Dr. Wand's mentoring program is designed to provide animal and human research trainees with a common knowledge base in alcohol theory, research design, data analysis strategies, ethical issues in pre-clinical and clinical research, and grantsmanship skills. In addition, each trainee receives more intensive individual training consistent with his/her special interests. These aspects include hypothesis generation, protocol development, and data analysis. For human investigators he covers human subjects considerations (including the process of obtaining informed consent), subject recruitment, interviewing, data collection, data cleaning, analysis, presentation and manuscript preparation. A primary goal of the mentoring is to enable trainees to develop writing and data analytic skills, as well as familiarity with new research technologies. Each trainee will receive quarterly formal review of goals and progress for performance evaluation and for career guidance. Each trainee meets weekly with one-on-one where he discusses research progress and goes over data, manuscript and reviews/chapters and any other pertinent issues. Individual mentorship provides the foundation for the training program.

Dr. Gary Wand is an accomplished neuroendocrinologist and alcohol researcher. This proposal describes the research and mentoring accomplishments of Dr. Wand. The application proposes a 5 year research and mentoring plan in the field of alcohol research.