The goal of the Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23) program is to ensure a future cadre of well-trained scientists working in POR areas who will become competitive for NIH research project (R01) grant support. The specific objectives of the Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award are to:
1)encourage research-oriented clinicians to develop independent research skills and gain experience in advanced methods and experimental approaches needed to become an independent investigator conducting patient-oriented research; 2) increase the pool of clinical researchers who can conduct patient-oriented studies, capitalizing on the discoveries of biomedical research and translating them to clinical settings; 3) support the career development of investigators who have made a commitment to focus their research endeavors on patient-oriented research.

For the purposes of this award, Patient-Oriented Research is defined as research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive phenomena) for which an investigator directly interacts with human subjects. This area of research includes: 1) mechanisms of human disease; 2) therapeutic interventions; 3) clinical trials, and; 4) the development of new technologies. Studies falling under Exemption 4 for human subjects research are not included in this definition.

See full description in NIH Guide: PA-09-043