Predoctoral Training Program in Quantitative Mechanobiology

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Project Summary/Abstract This application seeks funding for a new Interdisciplinary Predoctoral Training Program in Quantitative Mechanobiology at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The Program brings biologists, physicists, and engineers together to pursue fundamental understanding of the biophysical principles underlying human health spanning molecular to organismal level processes of mechanosignaling in development, homeostasis and disease. The focus of this initiative is cross-disciplinary training in mechanobiology, i.e., relationships between physical forces and biological structure and function, to produce a new cadre of bioscientists who will develop quantitative solutions to biology’s most challenging problems. If funded, the Training Program in Quantitative Mechanobiology will be UCSB’s first training grant and will serve as a flagship predoctoral training program that nucleates a connected community across the many labs already conducting mechanobiology research at UCSB through peer-to-peer interactions, cross-lab training, seminars, courses, and an annual symposium/retreat. The Program will provide support for Fellows to undertake three research rotations in their first year and opportunities for unique cross-training in mechanobiology. Each year, six Mechanobiology Fellows will be admitted with a steady state Program size of twelve predoctoral training slots. The Program will recruit and support Fellows from six graduate degree programs and augment their PhD programs with training in quantitative bioscience methods, engineering models and devices, and multi-disciplinary cross-training to develop and apply quantitative approaches to problems in mechanobiology. To provide optimal interdisciplinary mentorship and research training experiences, each Fellow will work with their project PI and will also be assigned a Program Mentor with complementary seniority, quantitative, experimental, and analytical approaches. The Program Mentor will also serve on the Fellow’s dissertation committee. This chain of mentorship is supported by formal Mentor trainings and leverages our mix of junior and senior Faculty Mentors to support both our Fellows and our junior Faculty Mentors. Fellows will benefit from formalized interactions with the diverse community of faculty and peers, as well as resources, associated with Program and affiliated graduate programs. Key components of the Program include formalized training in Responsible Conduct of Research, Quantitative Experiments, didactic and hands-on training in methods and analytical techniques in a Mechanobiology Methods course and quarterly “open door” lab sessions in Faculty Mentor labs. The Program will feature monthly seminars with peers, visiting researchers, and Faculty Mentors as well as career development activities, and an annual symposium/retreat uniting the entire UCSB mechanobiology community. Trainees from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, and groups will be prepared to lead rigorous biomedical research programs and promote scientific advances in academia, industry, national labs, and technology and policy careers.