Graduate Program in Quantitative and Chemical Biology at Indiana University Bloom

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this proposal, a highly collaborative group of thirty-three preceptors drawn from five different departments and programs at Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB) including Chemistry, Biology, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, Physics, and the Program in Medical Sciences of the IU School of Medicine, have come together to initiate a new predoctoral chemistry-biology interface (CBI) program termed the Quantitative and Chemical Biology Training Program (QCB TP). The central objective of the QCB TP is to build a graduate training environment that leverages our strengths in analytical chemistry and instrumentation development to create new didactic courses and research opportunities focused on interdisciplinary quantitative training in the biomedical sciences that transcends traditional departmental boundaries. The program is directed by a Program Director and an Associate Director, each with complementary expertise in physical and chemical biology, and is overseen by a Steering Committee which includes trainers from four participating departmental graduate programs. The Recruitment Committee will be responsible for identifying and targeting students for support by the program. The Curriculum Committee will direct the creation of topic-based e-modules by QCB TP students, and oversee the development of two 1.5 credit core courses, Quantitative Biology and Measurement (C680) and Introduction to Chemical Biology (C681), as well as QCB Journal Club (C689). Extracurricular programmatic activities include a QCB Seminar Series and the annual Watanabe Symposium in Chemical Biotechnology, each of which brings internationally prominent chemists to Bloomington from academia and industry alike to lecture and visit with QCB TP trainees. The program will also sponsor QCB Evenings, a monthly student-organized research seminar series. The proposed QCB TP enjoys strong administrative support from the College of Arts and Sciences at IUB, which has offered a match of six training, grant slots over the first three years of the initial five-year funding period. Ths support comes on top of 14 slots already committed over the last three years in the developmental phase of the QCB TP; this been used to support eight trainees for 1-2 years in years 2-3 of their graduate careers. A major goal of the program is to recruit and retain students from underrepresented groups in the life sciences at IUB; this will be accomplished by close association of the QCB TP Recruitment Committee with the Diversity Affairs Committee in Chemistry charged with leveraging significant campus-wide efforts in this area. A proposal for teaching the Responsible Conduct of Research is also outlined. Successful achievement of the goals of this program will dramatically change the face of graduate student education and outcomes in the chemical, physical and life sciences at IUB.