For the past decade, the Cardiology Imaging T32 has been training scientists to work at the intersection of two rapidly evolving fields: advanced imaging and cardiovascular biology. Now, following its second competitive renewal from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the program is entering its next chapter with new training in artificial intelligence and a continued focus on developing independent physician-scientists.
When Flordeliza S. Villanueva, MD, launched the program in 2016, she saw a gap in cardiovascular research. Imaging scientists and biomedical researchers were often working in isolation, limiting opportunities for the two disciplines to inform one another. The Cardiology Imaging T32 was designed to bridge that divide, bringing together trainees with different scientific backgrounds and giving them the tools to move between the physics and technology of imaging and the biology of cardiovascular disease.
Nearly a decade later, the program’s results offer a measure of how that vision has taken shape.
More than 25 trainees – the majority of whom have been physician-scientists – have been appointed to the program since its inception, producing more than 170 publications and securing more than 30 grants. Twenty have completed the program, with all remaining in academic research.
For Villanueva, that last measure may be the most meaningful.
“I’m proudest of the fact that our graduates have launched into successful academic careers focused on research,” she says. “It’s particularly rewarding to see our physician graduates, who are at risk for choosing solely clinical careers, persevere as physician scientists.”
That record also helped the program clear a higher bar with its second renewal.
“A second renewal, especially with a strong score, is very validating,” Villanueva says. “I think the bar is higher for a successful second renewal.” At this stage, she says, a program is expected to demonstrate not only that its training model works, but that its graduates are going on to productive research careers.
The renewal also provides an opportunity to adapt the program to changes in the scientific landscape. One of its newest initiatives is a lecture series introducing trainees to the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and its applications in scientific research. Villanueva says the goal is not to turn every trainee into a computational scientist. Instead, she wants them to develop enough familiarity with AI to understand how it is being used and to critically evaluate research that relies on it.
“Drawing from my own experience in being intimidated by the use of AI in science, I felt that we should provide an opportunity for our trainees to be exposed to basic elements of AI relevant to the scientific endeavor,” she says. “Not just so they could use it in relevant applications, but so that they can critically evaluate research of others who use it.”
Even designing the new curriculum reflects how quickly the field is changing.
“At the time I wrote the renewal, AI was less ubiquitous than it is now,” Villanueva says. “The lecture series is still in its planning stages, and it feels like we’re chasing a moving target as we try to nail down topics to cover.”
While the technologies surrounding cardiovascular research continue to change, Villanueva sees one element of the program as constant: mentorship. After nearly a decade as PI, she has developed a straightforward philosophy of matching the mentor to the mentee, rather than expecting every trainee to adapt to a predetermined mentoring model.
“Mentors and mentees come in so many different stripes, and finding a complementary match between individuals is critical,” she says. “A mentor needs to customize his or her approach to the mentee’s learning and communication style.”
That individualized approach is particularly important for trainees who are still learning how to navigate a research career. Some need more structure; others need greater independence. The goal, Villanueva says, is to help each trainee become increasingly productive and creative while developing the independence necessary to lead their own research.
The program’s graduates provide examples of what that progression can look like.
One early graduate, a physician-scientist, received an American Heart Association Career Development Award as she completed her T32 training and began her faculty career. She subsequently submitted a K23 proposal multiple times before receiving funding, while also building a portfolio of funded collaborations at Pitt and nationally.
“She now finds herself more than 100% funded,” Villanueva says, “and trying to figure out how to deal with this delightful problem.”
And, for physician trainees, the program offers something that can be difficult to find during clinical training: sustained time to focus almost entirely on research. Physician trainees in the program receive protected research time, which Villanueva encourages them to embrace rather than worry that stepping away from clinical work will diminish their skills.
“Our physician trainees tend to self-select as strong clinicians by the time they enter our program,” she says. “I tell them to stay absolutely focused on their research and not to worry about losing their clinical skills.”
The need for programs that can sustain physician-scientists in research is reflected in the relative rarity of cardiovascular imaging training programs. NIH RePORTER lists 239 active NHLBI T32 training grants nationwide, with only a small number focused specifically on imaging and an even smaller group dedicated to cardiovascular disease.
For Villanueva, the long-term measure of the Cardiology Imaging T32 will ultimately be found in what its trainees do years after leaving the program. She hopes graduates will look back on their time in the T32 not simply as another step in their training, but as a turning point in their careers.
And as the program begins its next chapter, Villanueva has an equally ambitious vision for what those careers might look like.
“I’d love to be able to say that all of our trainees remain in research-focused careers, and that those who have remained in academia are famous tenured professors with independent extramural funding. And, how our T32 was a formative experience that paved the way for their research career.”