American Heart Association Career Development Award

American Heart Association Career Development Award is sponsored by American Heart Association. This award supports healthcare and academic professionals early in their first professional appointment, to assure future success in the field of cardiovascular and/or cerebrovascular disease research.

Early Career Research Support from the American Heart Association: To the Second Century and Beyond - PMC As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. .

Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2025 Mar 1. Published in final edited form as: Circ Res. 2024 Feb 29;134(5):478–481.

doi: 10. 1161/CIRCRESAHA. 123.

323060 Early Career Research Support from the American Heart Association: To the Second Century and Beyond 1 Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion. 2 FBRI Center for Vascular and Heart Research, Roanoke, VA, USA. 3 Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA.

Find articles by Jessica Pfleger 1, 2, 3 , Ronald J Vagnozzi 4 Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA. 5 Consortium for Fibrosis Research & Translation; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA. 6 Gates Institute; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.

Find articles by Ronald J Vagnozzi 1 Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion. 2 FBRI Center for Vascular and Heart Research, Roanoke, VA, USA. 3 Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA.

4 Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA. 5 Consortium for Fibrosis Research & Translation; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA. 6 Gates Institute; University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.

* Correspondence to: Ronald J. Vagnozzi, Ph. D.

, Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Gates Institute, Consortium for Fibrosis Research and Translation (CFReT), University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; RC2 8005, 12700 E. 19th Avenue, Aurora, CO 80045, ronald. vagnozzi@cuanschutz.

edu PMCID: PMC11055508 NIHMSID: NIHMS1985918 PMID: 38422179 The publisher's version of this article is available at Circ Res On June 10, 2024, the American Heart Association (AHA) enters its 100th year as an organization dedicated to the fight against heart disease and stroke, thus fostering a world of longer, healthier lives.

This critical work includes essential lifesaving measures such as annual CPR training for approximately 22 million people and enrolling more than 2,600 hospitals in ‘Get with the Guidelines’, a program that provides up-to-date research and resources for professional and patient education and quality improvement.

The AHA also advocates for healthcare legislation such as the Access to Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) Act, which would increase AED training and availability in schools across the United States.

Through this work as part of AHA’s ‘You’re the Cure’ program and many other initiatives, the AHA has remained a premier professional advocacy and outreach voluntary organization for addressing cardiovascular disease and stroke in the United States and across the globe, since its inception in 1924 1 . Figure 1: AHA Early Career Funding as a Proportion of Total Funding.

Analysis of AHA funding investment from 2003–2022 including total awarded and funding awarded specifically as Undergraduate Fellowships, Predoctoral or Postdoctoral Fellowships, Beginning Grants-in-Aid, Scientific Development Grants, or Career Development Awards (early-stage awards). Figure generated from data in Dimensions 5 , a linked research knowledge system.

AHA support for undergraduates is largely through institutional mechanisms. For example, the AHA Institutional Award for Undergraduate Student Training enables institutions and universities to provide immersive research experiences for undergraduates for three years. Funds support student salaries as well as travel to a scientific conference, encouraging students to pursue research long-term 3 .

In addition, the AHA Institutional Research Enhancement Award (AIREA) provides funds over two years to educational institutions that are not largely NIH-supported, to perform cardiovascular disease and stroke research projects 3 .

These awards ensure that undergraduates and graduate students are exposed to high-quality scientific endeavors within the AHA mission, which is critical to encourage careers in cardiovascular and stroke research.

For many undergraduates and particularly those of under-represented status, these institutional mechanisms can help enable their first practical exposure to basic or translational research, opening new doors and thus fueling the next generations of cardiovascular science.

AHA support funding for predoctoral and health professions students is awarded to the individual student for their specific research, and this plays a key role in advancing the student’s career. AHA predoctoral fellowships involve writing a scientific proposal, as well as a training plan from the applicant’s mentor and mentoring team 3 .

These are excellent fellowship awards in that they support the student’s salary and some project and travel funds in the mentor’s laboratory over one to two years. They also have added developmental value, often providing students with their first grant writing experience by training them to formulate unique ideas, assemble figures, develop aims and approaches, and write scientifically.

Additionally, forming a training plan helps ensure a mentee’s success and is extremely helpful as they embark upon their careers. Additional mentors or scientific collaborators also expand the mentee’s network as they refine their scientific and career development skills.

In addition to carefully crafting the scientific proposal and training plan, the mentee engages in the entire process of submitting a grant, including budget and regulatory documents and working with a grant administration team for a prompt submission. Obtaining AHA predoctoral support also has additional advantages beyond securing the funds.

Receiving these awards in the early training period establishes a track record of funding that will be recognized as the student advances in their career, and increases their potential to obtain competitive postdoctoral fellowships and other training opportunities.

Thus, while the AHA Predoctoral Fellowship directly supports a student’s salary, applying for and receiving these awards also fosters transferrable and widely applicable “soft skills” development and allows the mentee to engage with the robust AHA peer community.

The AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship is equally important for those that have continued their scientific training beyond graduate and health professional programs, and can prepare mentees for independent scientific careers.

Similar to the Predoctoral Fellowship, this application requires a scientific and training plan, with funding to support the fellow’s salary as well as some project and travel funds for one to two years with the option to apply for another two-year award 3 .

AHA Postdoctoral Fellowships also enable fellows to develop independent ideas, devise a training strategy, hone their grantsmanship skills, grow their networks, and practice preparing and submitting a grant in its entirety. Receiving a Postdoctoral award can further a track record of success, which is critical for future funding and obtaining competitive academic and nonacademic positions.

Both the AHA Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships are highly prestigious, with an approximately 26% success rate for each in FY 2022–2023 4 . Thus, these award mechanisms undoubtedly position recipients for success. In addition to general Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships, the AHA often offers specialized grants for research in specific areas of critical need 3 .

Recent examples include a partnership with the Children’s Heart Foundation to investigate congenital heart defects; a call to study healthy diets in collaboration with the California Walnut Commission; and calls for research on Barth Syndrome, a rare genetic condition characterized by cardiac and skeletal myopathy.

Other recent application calls were for vascular and stroke research in collaboration with the Vascular Interventional Advances (VIVA) Foundation and the American Stroke Association (ASA) and American Brain Foundation (ABF), respectively. The latter, the AHA/ASA/ABF Lawrence M. Brass, MD Stroke Research Award for postdoctoral trainees, honors the late neurologist and leader in the field of hemorrhagic stroke.

These awards can all support early-stage investigators, highlighting the commitment of these foundations in partnership with the AHA to training the next generations of scientists. Another vital AHA goal is to champion diversity and inclusion within the research and healthcare community.

The AHA offers a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Science, which supports predoctoral and postdoctoral research fellows that are under-represented in science 3 . The application requires a scientific proposal that expands upon a funded AHA research project, as well as a career development plan. Supplement funds support the trainee’s salary and some project and travel funds for one to two years.

Moreover, all AHA Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships are accessible to holders of numerous visa types, allowing opportunities for non-U.S. citizens and greatly expanding and diversifying the applicant pool. More recently, the AHA has developed new policies that allow international applicants to apply for any AHA mentored award before relocating to the mentor’s lab.

This important new policy provides international trainees and fellows with greater flexibility and opportunity to apply for funding and build their careers, while also enhancing mentor/investigator flexibility for welcoming international trainees to their labs.

For those at the early faculty level, the AHA Career Development Award (CDA; formerly the Scientist Development Grant) is the predominant mechanism whereby new and rising early-stage investigators (those already in their first faculty position or senior postdoctoral fellows in the process) can secure significant and transferrable funding that directly supports an innovative independent research project.

These three-year awards allow for additional mentoring of the early-stage applicant, while also providing important flexibility and independence 3 . In addition, the CDA mechanism, with an approximately 33% success rate in FY 2022–2023 4 , aims to support preliminary studies and generation of pilot data to seed larger R01-level proposals.

The impact for early-stage faculty from this AHA funding investment is directly measurable and significant. Recipients of AHA early faculty awards go on to secure almost 8X more independent funding dollars from NIH and other sources ( Figure 2 ).

Comparative analysis of later NIH applications from AHA-funded vs. non-AHA-funded candidates shows those who received AHA funding early in their career secured 2X as many grants and 3X as much subsequent funding as those who did not receive AHA funding (data analysis of AHA Predoc, Postdoc, Beginning Grant in Aid, and Scientist Development Grants in the 2015 and 2016 cohorts from Dimensions 5 , a linked research knowledge system, in the fall of 2021).

Figure 2: Direct Impact of AHA Early Career Funding on Subsequent Awards. Analysis of AHA funding investment via early faculty awards from 2012–2016 ($162M USD across Beginning Grants in Aid, Scientist Development Grants) Recipients of these awards went on to secure $1. 26B USD in subsequent funding during the analysis period.

Data and figure from analyses of subsequent funding data from Dimensions 5 , a linked research knowledge system, in the fall of 2021. In sum, early-stage investigators applying for AHA awards join a robust community with an impactful history of moving the needle on cardiovascular and stroke research.

As we enter the AHA’s Second Century, we would encourage all current and future AHA early career researchers to stay engaged, positive, and proud. Programs like the Second Century of Science Awards highlight the AHA’s ongoing efforts to innovate in supporting early-stage investigators, and the AHA research community (new and established investigators alike) is also an incredible resource.

As such, the future is bright for early-stage researchers within the AHA. J. P.

was supported by AHA Career Development Award 19CDA34770052 from 2019 to 2023. R. J.

V. is supported by R01 HL169578 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and was supported by AHA Career Development Award 19CDA34670044 from 2019 to 2022. 1.

History of the American Heart Association. Accessed October 16, 2023. https://www.

heart. org/en/about-us/history-of-the-american-heart-association 2. Research Accomplishments.

Accessed October 16, 2023. https://professional. heart.

org/en/research-programs/aha-research-accomplishments October 16, 2023. https://professional. heart.

org/en/research-programs/aha-funding-opportunities 4. FY 22–23 Success Rates. Accessed October 16, 2023.

https://professional. heart. org/en/research-programs/success-rates October 27.

2023. https://www. digital-science.

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