Doctoral Training Program in Tropical Diseases

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is a new training initiative for pre-doctoral training in Tropical Infectious Diseases and requests funding for five trainees for five years. The Principal Investigator of the program is Professor Dyann Wirth and the program will be in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health. The Harvard School of Public Health has recently made a new and expanded commitment to infectious diseases research through the creation of a new department called Immunology and Infectious Diseases (IID). The formation of this department was based on the recognition of the importance of infectious diseases in the overall global burden of disease, disproportionately affecting peoples living in developing countries in the tropical regions of the world. According to the World Health Organization, over one third of the deaths in the world in 1999 were due to infectious diseases and this proportion is likely to increase with spreading HIV/AIDS in many populous developing countries. Thus, there is an increasing need for research and training in infectious diseases and this training program addresses this need with an emphasis on developing country infectious diseases, including malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. The proposed training program provides for training of predoctoral students in tropical infectious diseases, including training in core knowledge areas of immunology, molecular biology, cell biology, biostatistics, biochemistry, genetics and genomics. Students, in addition, will receive advanced training focusing on specific infectious agents and the applications of modern approaches to vaccine and drug development for these important diseases. Much of the ongoing basic research in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases addresses important areas of molecular pathogenesis, examining both host-pathogen and pathogen-vector interfaces. Trainees in this program will be exposed to integrated approaches that consider the host-pathogen relationship at the molecular and cellular levels, incorporating biochemistry and genomics, to generate a more broad perspective on disease pathogenesis and strategies for intervention.