BIOTECHNOLOGY PREDOCTORAL TRAINING

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The proposal requests funding continuation for the Predoctoral Biotechnology Training Program at Northwestern University (NU). This interdisciplinary and interdepartmental Program offers biotechnology training opportunities for a select group of students from the three participating units: the departments of Biomedical (BME) and Chemical (ChE) Engineering, and the Interdepartmental Biological Sciences (IBiS) program. Research opportunities, chosen from among a wide array of laboratories in the life sciences, are complemented by core interdisciplinary courses. Three-(3) to 6-month industrial internships expose trainees to the industrial environment of modern biotechnology. Internship placements are facilitated by the NU Center for Biotechnology (NUCB), which has strong connections with the industrial biotechnology community. NUCB offers many additional training opportunities, including courses with extensive industrial, legal, and financial content, and the Summer Biotechnology Institute, all of which strengthen the Program's industrial component. All trainees participate in the IBiS, two-day, off-campus annual retreat, which allows extensive interactions among students and faculty from many disciplines. The Biotechnology research club, whose scope and frequency will be expanded, is the forum where trainees and faculty present their research results to and interface with other students. Several other interdisciplinary research clubs provide trainees additional opportunities to interact with students and faculty from various disciplines. Trainees organize and host biotechnology seminars which bring predominantly industrial scientists to campus for a seminar and discussion with trainees. Students also take advantage of several other seminar programs. Instruction in the responsible conduct of research is carried our primarily through the course "Ethics in Biological Research"> Instruction in the responsible conduct of research is carried out primary through the course "Ethics in Biological Research". Trainees are recruited by the Program and the participating units, using posters, brochures, and WWW pages. Intensive efforts are made to recruit students from under-represented groups, and have been quite successful. A larger fraction of trainees currently comes from ChE because of the larger student-applicant pool. With the requested increase in the number of funded positions, more students will be recruited from the other participating units. The present grant was recommended for six positions but two to five were funded. In recognition of the Program's achievements and in order to carry out the proposed improvements, this proposal requests twelve funded positions.