Translational Research Training Program in Environmental Health Sciences

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) This is a resubmission of an application for a new Institutional Training Grant (T32) to support a Translational Research Training Program in Environmental Health Sciences for pre- and post- doctoral fellows at the University of Pennsylvania. The home for the Training Program will be the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) which is a P30 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center funded by NIEHS. The CEET is a Translational Environmental Health Sciences Center with a focus on major societal disease that affects the Philadelphia area: including but not limited to lung and airway disease, and reproductive, endocrinology, and developmental disorders (including the developmental basis of adult disease). Additionally, there is a strong emphasis on disease mechanism involving oxidative stress and gene-environment interactions. Pre-doctoral fellows, 2 per year, will be supported for three years bringing the steady state to 6 pre-doctoral fellows. Postdoctoral fellows preferably one Ph.D. and one M.D. will be appointed per year and will be supported for two years bringing the steady state to 4 postdoctoral fellows. Pre-doctoral fellows will be recruited to the investigators' umbrella program Biomedical Graduate Studies will be eligible to apply to the Certificate Program in Environmental Health Sciences which is a unique 2 year curriculum consisting of didactic course work and three rotations, one of which must be either a community-based research or population-based research rotation so that hands on training in environmental/molecular epidemiology is provided. Pre-doctoral fellows will be appointed to the Training Grant (TG) after completion of the first year of the Certificate Program. The training Program is distinct from the Certificate Program. All pre-doctoral fellows must take the Certificate Program but not all students in the Certificate Program will be supported by the Training Program. Those supported by the Training Program are expected to conduct thesis work in environmental health science that will be dual mentored by a basic and clinical scientist preceptor and will take additional course work in translational research training. Basic scientist postdoctoral fellows wishing to pursue clinical research on a disease of environmental etiology and clinician scientists wishing to pursue basic research on molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to such disease will be appointed for up to two years. They will also be dual mentored. Postdoctoral fellows will be required to take at least four courses available to the Training Program pre-doctoral fellows to supplement their knowledge base. Postdoctoral fellows will also receive additional mentoring through the Career Development Core of the CEET. This Training Program provides the format for cross-fertilization and will provide a new cadre of environmental health scientist who may be equally well at home with the basic and clinical science of a problem. Trainees will be equipped to deal with environmental exposures, how they relate to disease and how their findings may be translated at the patient-, community- and public health- levels.