Training in Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases

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The Training in Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (TTEGD) program at the University of Georgia (UGA) trains graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to become independent research scientists who study parasitic diseases in the context of global health. The research program seeks fundamental insights into protozoan and helminth parasites and their interaction with their mammalian hosts and invertebrate vectors. It combines cutting-edge bench and field science with perspectives on the global challenges and opportunities for the control and elimination of parasitic diseases. These perspectives are grounded in firsthand experience by trainers and collaborators around the world. Every year protozoan and helminth parasitic diseases of humans are responsible for more than a million deaths, many millions more cases of severe morbidity, and hundreds of millions of cases of subtle morbidity due to chronic infections. UGA is uniquely positioned as a training ground for the next generation of parasitology/tropical disease researchers and the TTEGD is the central basis of their training and development. The Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (CTEGD) within UGA is home to perhaps the largest number of parasitology research laboratories in the US that collectively cover the full gamut of parasitic diseases. We believe that the breadth and culture of our program instill trainees with the ability to translate basic scientific findings into tool development and the implementation of interventions, and foster their ability to identify and formulate a fundamental research question out of the context of parasitic disease itself. During the last funding period, the program has further grown and flourished and selected students and postdocs participate in a number of activities tailored to their preparation for their future success in science careers. Significant institutional commitment for breadth- enhancing capstone experiences, a match for trainee lines, a reorganized innovative graduate recruitment umbrella, and new diversity initiatives further strengthen this highly successful training program. For the next funding period we introduce new initiatives including new requirements for postdoc trainees, a more rigorous training of new trainers, new postdoc recruitment strategies to increase diversity, new strategies to recruit underrepresented minorities, potential expansion of the program with the use of matched trainee lines and new themes offered to trainees on large data mining and computer science.