A recognized barrier to reducing health disparities is the paucity of minority health disparities researchers and researchers dedicated to addressing the health care needs of ethnic minority and underserved populations. To address this need, the Drew/UCLA Comprehensive Center for Health Disparities (CCHD) in chronic kidney disease (CKD) has created a "Developmental Core". The objective of the Developmental Core is to significantly improve the quality and quantity of health disparities research and scientific publications by promising junior investigators addressing CKD and CKD-related health disparities as described in the Healthy People 2010. Junior investigators will be paired with senior mentors and will participate in a structured environment to enhance their research, scientific communication skills and knowledge. The specific aims of this core are to: 1. Enhance institutional health disparities research capabilities by increasing the number of health disparities researchers at Drew; 2. Provide support for CKD-related developmental projects to stimulate and better prepare promising minority junior investigators with a strong commitment to issues affecting disadvantaged populations for CKD research careers; 3. Promote junior faculty development through the support of mentored-research projects by pairing promising junior faculty with dedicated senior investigators; 4. Continuously evaluate the processes and objectives of the Developmental Core to make ongoing programmatic improvements in consultation with NCRR program officials and the external advisory board. The expected outcomes of the Developmental Core are the successful completion of applications for independent peer-reviewed funding by junior investigators and for the eventual attainment of a "tenured" research track academic appointment based on high quality CKD disparities research conducted by mentored junior investigators.