Program Outcomes
Four pillars for career-related activities have been established to expose trainees and chemical biology researchers outside the training grant to the breadth of careers in the biomedical research workforce for which their training may be useful using CBITG resources. To fulfill the diverse career interests, as a fifth pillar, we also leverage university resources for career service support: (1) interdisciplinary research training (2) attending and organizing scientific conferences (3) Chemical Biology Colloquium (CBC) programming and (4) summer industry/academia site visits. and (5) UMN career services. These opportunities are shared with CBITG trainees through emails, monthly meeting with trainees, and at the start of CBC meetings.
Training Outcomes: Career Placement
The current CBITG grant began in 2018, as such there are only a small number of trainees that have received their PhD (6 with a 5.6 year average for graduation, a seventh defend their thesis at end of June at 3.8 years; Fig A). Our CBITG has been continuously funded since 1999, and so we also include the last 15 years of trainees in our outcome analysis. From this cohort, the average time to degree remains similar, (5.7 years, derived from faculty tabulated data for the current grant funding period and historical data including the month and year trainees entered their graduate program until the date their degree was conferred). A graduation time of 5.6 years favorably compares to the average time to graduate for each of the individual departments, 5.3, 5.5 and 6.0 years for BMBB, Chemistry, and Medicinal Chemistry respectively, and is close to the national average of 5.5 for (bio)chemistry departments at large research universities. Our CBITG trainees are more likely to graduate with a PhD (93% over 15 years; 100% in the last 10 years) versus students in any of the three departments (66-70%, Fig B). For the six CBITG trainees that have completed their PhD since the start of this grant, all are pursuing research-related careers, three in industry (Takeda, and two at Bio-Techne), and three are completing academic postdocs/research 5 positions (UC Berkeley, Oregon Health Science University’s Vollum Institute, UMN). Our 7th trainee will start a postdoc at St. Jude. The rest remain in the program.
Over the last 15 years, we have had 37 CBITG trainees graduate with a PhD and 3 with an MS. The majority of trainees with a PhD stayed in academic careers (65%) for their first position, while two students pursued an alternative career outside of research in patent law and high school science, Fig C. In their current positions, the majority of trainees are in research careers in industry (46%), while six former trainees are pursuing alternative careers outside of research but are still using their science education. These positions include two in medical school, three in patent law, and one high school science teacher (Fig D). Given the emphasis placed on career training in our current training program (including discussion of alternate career paths, career panels, and seminar series with a breadth of industrial and academic speakers), we believe that our program is and will continue to be highly successful in preparing students for a diverse array of occupations that meet their own personal aspirations including careers in biomedical research.
Training Outcomes: Publications
The total number of publications for all trainees in CBITG since 2019 is 49 including 20 first or co-first author papers. This averages to 9.8 publications per year or 0.41 publication/trainee/year (Table 1). These interpretations are challenging due to the small cohort and short time period, as many of our trainees publish a large body of work near or after graduation. Of our 6 trainees receiving their PhD, 29 papers have been published with 12 first author publications. Of our 8 current trainees, five have already co-authored a paper including one trainee who has co-authored a first author paper.
To more broadly evaluate our publication outcomes and demonstrate the highly collaborative nature of our training grant, we provide an additional analysis which includes 34 trainees from 2013-2024. From this cohort, they have published 122 papers involving either a CBITG trainee (72 publications) or co-authored papers with at least two CBITG trainers (62 publications with many being cross-departmental). This latter statistic further supports the highly collaborative atmosphere amongst the chemical biology faculty providing valuable exposure to cross-disciplinary research and fostering a productive relationship between labs for co-mentoring trainees. In addition, 34 of the 122 papers include first author manuscripts from CBITG trainees.
Training Outcomes: Trainees from Underrepresented Groups in STEM
Prior to the start of the current CBITG (granting period 2019-2024), just 6% of the CBITG trainees were from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (2013-2018). Outcomes from several of these trainees include: Director of Clinical Chemistry and Toxicology at US Department of Veteran Affairs, St. Paul, MN, Novazyme, and the UMN Medical School.
We used an anonymous survey to look into the diversity of the CBITG trainees since it was funded in 2019 (2019-2023; response rate 52%). Respondents were 33.3% BIPOC (minimum of 17.4%, from the CBITG trainee cohort) and 16.7% reported being from a disadvantaged background (minimum of 8.7% from the entire trainee pool). As voluntarily reported in application materials, 6/21 trainees (28.6%) belong to an NIH-defined underrepresented groups (BIPOC and/or disadvantaged background). In 2024, one additional BIPOC student joined the CBITG bringing us to 29.2% of the trainees supported over the last five years being identified with NIH-defined underrepresented groups. Thus, the diversity of the CBITG trainees has dramatically increased. Given that these students have joined CBITG since 2019, only two have graduated (PhD in 5.6 years) and has secured a position at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a second graduated in June (PhD in 3.8 years) and will start their postodc this July. Additional outcomes of these seven trainees include 10 publications and 1 patent application. One was named a leader in the promotion of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect Award by the ACS, one was awarded an NSF GRFP fellowship, and one was awarded a 1-year college of pharmacy fellowship. As such, these trainees are receiving effective mentorship for obtaining professional and research goals, are performing at or above the level of other current trainees, and are securing professional careers in biomedical research.
Typically, trainees are supported in years 2 and 3 however, given the large number of qualified applicants, occasionally applicants are appointed in years three and four particularly if they applied the year before. Three of the 24 students were appointed at this stage. All three identified as female, were ranked very highly by the selection committee, and two were from medicinal chemistry, where female medicinal chemists are significantly underrepresented although this falls outside the NIH’s definition. One of these trainees was awarded the Abul-Haj/Hanna award, the top award for scholarly accomplishments in the medicinal chemistry department.