title: Developing translational medicine professionals: the Marie Skłodowska-Curie action model.
abstract: End goal of translational medicine is to combine disciplines and expertise to eventually promote improvement of the global healthcare system by delivering effective therapies to individuals and society. Well-trained experts of the translational medicine process endowed with profound knowledge of biomedical technology, ethical and clinical issues, as well as leadership and teamwork abilities are essential for the effective development of tangible therapeutic products for patients. In this article we focus on education and, in particular, we discuss how programs providing training on the broad spectrum of the translational medicine continuum have still a limited degree of diffusion and do not provide professional support and mentorship in the long-term, resulting in the lack of well established professionals of translational medicine (TMPs) in the scientific community. Here, we describe the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions program ITN-EUtrain (EUropean Translational tRaining for Autoimmunity & Immune manipulation Network) where training on the Translational Medicine machinery was integrated with education on professional and personal skills, mentoring, and a long-lasting network of TMPs.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Translational Immunology, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, University Medical Center of Utrecht (UMCU), Lundlaan 6, 3584 EA, Utrecht, Netherlands. a.petrelli@umcutrecht.nl.|Diabetes Research Institute, San Raffaele Vita-Salute University, Milan, Italy. a.petrelli@umcutrecht.nl.
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5639-9415
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Petrelli
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Translational Immunology, Wilhelmina Children's Hospital, University Medical Center of Utrecht (UMCU), Lundlaan 6, 3584 EA, Utrecht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Berent J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Prakken
authors.affiliation: The Hospital for Sick Children, Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Norman D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Rosenblum
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D017145:Models, Educational; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical / Q000193:education*; D000078329:Workforce