Program in Human and Molecular Genetics

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is a request for a 5-year renewal of support for the Predoctoral Training Program in Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. The Department of Molecular and Human Genetics follows three principles that guide the pursuit of innovative biomedicine at Baylor College of Medicine: Research, Education and Service. The mission of this program is to train graduate students in the fundamentals of classical and modern genetics and in applying these principles to innovation in biological medicine. Our objectives are to provide students with rigorous and methodical training in genetics while emphasizing research and academic excellence, and to help them become leaders among the next generation of biomedical scientists. There are currently 83 predoctoral students in the program and we expect that 14-16 new students will initiate their graduate work in the department each year. The number of faculty mentors is 70 and they pursue research projects that span a wide range of interests, including human genetics, genomics, the molecular basis of human disease, animal models of human disease, microbial genetics, development, neurobiology, genome stability, and DNA replication. The common theme of these varied topics is the interest in genetics and the application of the findings to human health. Students who enter the program spend the first year of their training taking courses and doing laboratory rotations. The courses provide students with sufficient background to design and analyze the results of genetic-based experiments and the rotations provide individualized research experiences. The students also participate in specialized training in the responsible conduct of research and in ethical aspects of human genetics in the genomic era. In the second year, students join a research laboratory in which they carry out a research project under the supervision of one of the faculty mentors. They also take a qualifying examination that tests their ability to integrate knowledge from courses and from the literature and to design an original experimental research project. In addition to training in experimental work, students learn how to analyze their data and write papers describing their work, and how to participate in the scientific process in a collegial and constructive way. The thesis project culminates in the preparation and defense of a thesis dissertation. The average time to a PhD degree in the program is 5.9 years and the average number of publications is 4.24 per student, with 2 first-author papers on average. The current number of training positions on this grant is 10, but we have received only 9 every year due to NIGMS budget restrictions. In the past 5 years our applicant pool has almost doubled and our attrition rate has declined to zero in the past 3 years. We are asking to increase the number of positions to 14.