Pre and Post Doctoral Training: UMKC School of Dentistry

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is a revised competing renewal of training grant, DE07294 (years 11 through 15), and is in direct response to the reissue of PAR-00-116 from the National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research, release date: May 5, 2005. The proposal is designed to develop a cadre of highly skilled, interactive scientists who can successfully address the expanding opportunities in dental, oral, and craniofacial research. The training program is highly interdisciplinary by design, serving a wide variety of interactive disciplines at pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training levels. Because of the variety of training levels, and the interdisciplinary and translational/clinical emphasis in the research and educational programs, the mentors and the Director are uniquely positioned to respond effectively and directly to the goals outlined in the program announcement. The goals of the training program are to: 1) produce dentist-scientists to conduct clinically relevant oral health research; 2) train a multi-disciplinary cadre of talented investigators for careers in dental and craniofacial science; and 3) develop the next generation of dental school faculty. The training emphasizes three primary research areas which include: 1) bone biology; 2) dental biomaterials (including biomechanics, bioinformatics and dental and craniofacial bioengineering); and 3) dental translational/clinical research. The growth of these training and research efforts has greatly expanded over the past five years. Highlights include: 1) the construction of 14,000 sq. ft. of additional research space was completed and occupied in April, 2004; 2) a threefold increase in outside research funding support from $1.5M in 2001 to over $5.0M in 2006; 3) an increase in filled tenure track faculty positions from 4 in 2001 to 13 in 2006; and 4) an increase in the number of trainees supported from a variety of sources increased from15 in 2001 to 52 in 2006. For each year of training there will be 10 to 12 dental summer research fellowship students supported from dental school funds; 10 engineering students for 10 weeks of training, who will be funded from "Dental Science Research Training Program for Engineers" (DK 069501); three full-time pre-doctoral students; five dentists pursuing interdisciplinary Ph.D. degrees; and two basic science faculty and/or dental faculty short-term trainees. A total of eight full-time appointments are requested for year 11, nine in year 12 and 10 in years 13 through 15 in pre- and post-doctoral training. Two short-term training positions for faculty are requested for years 11 through 15. A main component of the proposal is to train dentists in the scientific method in sufficient depth to enable them to become collaborative, interdisciplinary, reasonably independent, basic, and/or translational/clinical researchers.