“I think this program is the most valuable for early stage investigators and people of color,” Dr. Ana Quiñones says about the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN).

Quiñones is an Assistant Professor at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Public Health. She saw an announcement about NRMN online and then decided to apply. Having already started writing a grant, she took part in a NRMN-P³ (or NRMN Proposal Preparation Program) coaching group based at the University of Minnesota. When she started the program, however, she had some reservations that it wouldn’t suit her needs. “I don’t think I really had a lot of mentors or peers who had expertise in my work,” she says. Without that expertise Quiñones was afraid that the NRMN cohort wouldn’t be able to help her write a successful grant application. She studies health disparities between Latinx, blacks, and whites among U.S. populations, and comparative analyses of international health care systems, especially among the aged. That work involves complex mathematical modeling.

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“I don’t feel like I have as many challenges now,” Dr. Tanecia Mitchell says, after securing her first National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant and having laid the foundation for many more to come. Mitchell credits earning the K01 grant, an award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, to her experience gained from participating in the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN). The grant is to study mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, and inflammation in clinical patients with kidney disorders.

The five-year, $768,776 award marked not only the first NIH grant for Mitchell, but the first K01 grant awarded to the Department of Urology faculty at her institution. Prior to winning the grant, Mitchell worked as an instructor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One month later after receiving the NIH award, Mitchell assumed the position of Assistant Professor at UAB’s School of Medicine.

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