Training Program in Molecular Medicine

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests funds to support predoctoral trainees in a recently established and novel training program at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, which confers a doctorate in Molecular Medicine. The Molecular Medicine program addresses the critical need for generating talented research scientists who can pursue a career that lies at the interface between basic and clinical investigative medicine. There are several distinctive features of this Molecular Medicine graduate program. A team containing both an M.D. and a Ph.D. provides formalized mentoring for each trainee. Trainees become members of a newly established multidisciplinary NIH funded Program for Clinical Research (PCR), which provides administrative support for the Molecular Medicine Ph.D. program, a Masters in Molecular Medicine program for physicians, a Masters program in Epidemiology and Health Services for physicians and other health care professionals, and the MD/PhD program of the medical school. Complementary collegial and educational interactions occur among all trainees in the graduate programs. An emphasis is placed on training in the conduct of research/ethics, recruitment of minorities, career development in academic research, and marketing the program. Other novel features specific of the Molecular Medicine predoctoral program include a course involving direct interaction of trainees with physicians and patients, and a highly specialized didactic course to Molecular Basis of Human Disease. Trainees perform cutting-edge research that is focused in either human genetics and gene expression, or human cell biology (signaling, protein trafficking, growth and differentiation, and apoptosis). These research experiences translate to the fields of cancer, infectious and allergic diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, renal diseases, pain control, and the neuroscience of substance abuse. A multidisciplinary faculty comes from the clinical sciences Departments of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Surgery, and Anesthesiology, the basic sciences Departments of Biochemistry, Physiology and Pharmacology, Microbiology and Immunology, Cancer Biology, and Pathology, and from the newly established Center for Human Genetics. This training grant will allow continued growth and recruitment of the most competitive applicants and minorities into the Program.