BIOTECHNOLOGY TRAINING PROGRAM

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We seek five more years of support for the newly established Biotechnology Training Program (BTP) at the University of Virginia. In the first four years of funding we have built the BTP into a highly interactive community of PhD trainees drawn selectively from an annual Spring competition open to PhD students from all science and engineering departments university-wide. BTP students in training (16) or graduated (2; plus several this summer) entered with an average undergraduate GPA of 3.53, include two minorities, and are currently hosted by seven different departments. One trainee received the top graduate student award in UVa's basic medical sciences in '03, another was runnerup, and a third was recently nominated for '04. Trainees have published 28 peer reviewed articles, submitted 69 abstracts, experienced nine different company externships, and are planning eight more in the US and overseas. Trainees have taken direct responsibility for programmatic features of the BTP including: editorship of the BTP newsletter, organization of BTP Minority Day, high school outreach, BTP poster presentations at other institutions, organization of BTP seminars, social activities, new student dinner, BTP Symposia, and the BTP website. Mentoring our trainees is a highly engaged, collaborative and well-funded faculty of thirty-seven individualsfrom departments nationally ranked by NIH funding as high as #3 (Cell Biology) and #5 (Microbiology). Institutional support has been essential for our success, particularly the important role of the Graduate Programs Office in day to day administration of the Program. Also important has been sustained funding of three extra slots by the Deans of Engineering and Medicine, and the enthusiastic organization of company tours and externships by the Health Science Development Office. We view the BTP's mission as threefold: (i) most importantly to train our students to do the best science possible, (ii) to provide a meaningful experience in industrial science via our externship program, and (iii) to promote scientific synergy among BTP students of different disciplines through regular BTP Journal Clubs/Data Sessions, Seminars and Symposia. We argue in the following competitive renewal that success in each of these areas has been achieved, thereby helping to develop a new generation of young scientists who approach new scientific challenges with analytical minds and an extensive array of modern technologies.