SPECIFIC AIMS OVERALL For the last 15 years, The Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU) Center for Accelerating Excellence in Translational Science (AXIS) has focused on eliminating health disparities in the south Los Angeles community, particularly those related to cancer, cardiometabolic diseases, and HIV/AIDS. As an unexpected expansion in response to the needs of our local community, the entire CDU establishment also led community initiatives to improve local outcomes during the pandemic, including providing education and facilitating COVID- 19 screening, prevention, care, and clinical trials. The AXIS Research Center and our Research Programs at CDU were critical in these processes. In the next 5 years, we will improve our strengths and address weaknesses that became apparent during the previous funding cycle to achieve our goals as a Center and an Institution committed to reducing and eliminating health disparities. This will use established AXIS Center resources, resources, and partnerships at neighboring institutions and the nationwide RCMI Consortium to advance our three programmatic goals that align with the University's mission, vision, and strategic plan. To accomplish this, we propose to continue with the three programmatic goals that align with the mission, vision, and strategic plan for the university research enterprise: Goal 1: To enhance the infrastructure capacity in translational research using the Precision Medicine model in the areas of Cancer, Cardiometabolic, and HIV/AIDS. Provide support for research pillars in Mental Health and Health Services Research. Goal 2: To continue integrating basic, clinical, behavioral, and community-partnered research by fostering collaboration among disciplines, departments, and schools at CDU and sustainable collaboration with community leaders and investigators across other research institutions. Goal 3: To facilitate and elevate professional development and best practices in mentored clinical and translational research training on minority health and health disparities To achieve these goals, we combine a basic science project, a clinical trial Project, and a behavioral research Project, all focused on reducing health disparities among Latinx and African American populations in the greater Los Angeles area. Four Cores will support the three Projects. 1) An Administrative Core to provide oversight and facilitate implementation of critical activities to procure resources, budget and monitor finances, assess and direct research faculty, and support staff productivity. 2) an Investigator Development Core to continue a pilot project program and provide comprehensive research resources and support, mentoring, and skills development training for early-stage investigators, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty. 3) A Research Capacity Core to continue to provide transdisciplinary research infrastructure in Drug Discovery, Biomedical Informatics, Clinical Research Resources and Facilities, and Research Methods and Statistics while expanding our services with the Next-Generation Sequencing Unit and the Exosomes and microRNA Unit. 4) A Community Outreach Core to facilitate communication and engagement with the community, enhance education and compassion, and increase research capacity via the local community.

OVERALL PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE South Los Angeles Service Planning Area 6, which comprises 68% Hispanic/Latino and 27% African American individuals, is one of the most underserved and under-resourced locations, with healthcare access and socioeconomic standards that are lower than any other county in Los Angeles and in the US. As a result, these communities have the highest incidence, morbidity, and mortality rates associated with cancer, cardiometabolic diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Our Program will focus on understanding how these socio-economic and environmental factors impact cellular, molecular, genetic, and epigenetic drivers that cause poor health outcomes in our communities, identifying opportunities for interventions to reduce health disparities.