Research Training Program in the Vision Sciences

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DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) A comprehensive program has been designed with the purpose of training pre-and postdoctoral scientists in the broad area of vision science. The training program will be delivered by 26 NEI-funded vision scientists studying nearly all aspects of ocular function and pathology. Predoctoral trainees will take courses that provide detailed information about the neurobiology of the visual system or a comprehensive course in all aspects of the development, physiology and pathology of the eye. Postdoctoral trainees will also be encouraged to attend these courses. Pre- and postdoctoral trainees will be strongly encouraged to participate in the rich environment of seminars, advanced courses, honorary lectures, journal clubs, and retreats offered in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University. Many of these opportunities involve the participation of both basic and clinical scientists, assuring that trainees will learn about both the origins and treatment of human ocular diseases. The training program will support two postdoctoral trainees for their first year at Washington University. This will provide adequate time for them to apply for individual research training grant support. In the first two years the training program will support four predoctoral trainees, increasing to five in the third year and six in each of the last two years. This will assure that an adequate number of vision science trainees will be available to enrich the training environment. The faculty members in the training program currently have 29 predoctoral and 37 postdoctoral trainees in their laboratories. This demonstrates the commitment of the faculty to training and illustrates the large size of the pool of applicants from which the training grant will draw. The overall goal of this program is to identify the most promising scientists and to provide them with a training environment that maximizes the probability that they will become productive contributors to the understanding and treatment of human ocular diseases.