Nutrition Sciences and Health

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This is a competing continuation proposal for a training grant administered by the Nutrition and Health Sciences (NHS) program of Emory University. The training grant has been critical for stability and development of the NHS program, which was established in 1993. Over the duration of the two funding cycles (1996-01 and 2002-06), funds have supported 22 doctoral students; twelve have completed their PhD, while the rest are still in residence and in good standing. These trainees have won numerous awards and fellowships, have presented their work at national and international meetings, and have published many articles in refereed journals. Most graduates have gone on to promising positions in academia and in the public or private sector. The complexities of the field of nutrition make the training of students in nutrition research particularly challenging because students must acquire depth in key specialized areas while learning how to function at the interfaces among many disciplines that are, themselves, changing rapidly. The NHS program is a model for such interdisciplinary training. The NHS offers rigorous interdisciplinary training that spans the spectrum from basic sciences through clinical research to public health, and provides students with the necessary skills to investigate the relationship between nutrition and human health, including the prevention and control of nutritional problems and related diseases of national and global concern. The NHS program is not housed administratively in any one department; rather, its faculty come from across the university (primarily from departments in the schools of medicine and public health) and from two institutions located on the Emory campus, namely The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Cancer Society. As a result of the emphasis at Emory on growth of doctoral programs and also because of a strong demand from applicants to the NHS program, we are requesting an increase in the number of trainees, from four to six per year. The training program for predoctoral students consists of core and elective courses, 3 mentored research projects, and dissertation research. We are also requesting, as a new addition to the grant, two postdoctoral traineeships during each of years 2-5 (a total of 4 trainees, each for a maximum of two years over the training period). A strong research environment provides many opportunities for research and mentoring of postdoctoral candidates.