Training in Molecular Toxicology

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This is a renewal of the training grant “Training in Molecular Toxicology” at UCLA that was last renewed in 2014. Our highly interdisciplinary program, uniquely focused on mechanisms of toxicity, gathers faculty from 11 departments in 4 different schools at UCLA behind the common goal of mentoring pre-doctoral and postdoctoral trainees in the investigation of the mechanisms of action of toxicological agents and the evaluation of their impacts on health and the environment. Our specific programmatic objectives are to (1) Foster novel and scientifically cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in mechanistic toxicology; (2) Provide didactic and hands-on research experience to create a comprehensive training in toxicology from molecules and large molecular datasets to pathology and disease; (3) Use laboratory research to model positive mentoring and teaching skills for trainees' future careers; (4) Develop our trainees' soft skills, including writing skills for publications and grants, speaking skills for presentations, and networking skills; (5) Create a welcoming, engaging, respectful training environment that is diverse in all measures, where each trainee feels that they have a voice and are a valued contributor within a larger community. We request four predoctoral slots and two postdoctoral slots. This number of trainee positions requested is justified by the substantial NIEHS and non-NIEHS funding of our faculty (averaging $498,701 total annual direct costs per person), our success in recruiting excellent predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees, our successful endeavors in URM trainee recruitment, the excellent publication record of the recent trainees in high impact journals (including Nature Comm., PNAS, PLoS Genetics, Cell Reports, Environmental Health Perspectives, Cancer Research, J. Biol. Chem., J. Neuroscience, Genetics, Plant Cell, and J. Immunology), and the successful transition of our past trainees into important positions in academia, government or industry. The UCLA Molecular Toxicology program is well supported by UCLA, which has committed considerable resources to it, including the recruitment of a new faculty for a state-funded tenure-track position in the area of the molecular toxicology of disease. Molecular toxicology is also one of the hiring priorities for another future recruitment. The faculty have seven major foci of research interests: neurotoxicology (particularly the role of pesticides in the etiology of Parkinson's disease), air pollution (the toxic effects of secondhand cigarette smoke, wild-fire smoke, and of fossil fuels and their combustion products), toxico-epigenetics (effects of endocrine disruptors and other toxicants), nanotoxicology, big data/computational toxicology, gene-environment interactions and susceptibility, and alternative model organisms and predictive toxicology. These research foci are highly relevant to environmental challenges confronting California and the nation. Renewal of the training grant will further stimulate molecular toxicological research and training at UCLA, should encourage more students and postdocs to pursue research in toxicology, and will signal the increasing importance of toxicology at UCLA.