Graduate Training in Computational and Systems Biology

描述（由申请人提供）：目标是继续发展麻省理工学院的跨学科博士前培训计划，在计算和系统生物学（CSB），培养学生成为生物医学研究的领导者在生物学，计算和工程的接口。CSB是麻省理工学院为对计算和系统生物学感兴趣的学生提供的主要培训课程，也是唯一一个强调该领域跨学科培训和研究的课程。项目教师集中在三个 创始部门-生物工程（BE），生物学和电气工程与计算机科学（EECS）-与其他部门的教师的额外参与。培训教师的研究兴趣涵盖广泛的CSB相关领域，包括计算分子生物学/调控基因组学和进化，分子和细胞生物物理学，癌症和其他疾病的系统生物学，蛋白质组学，微生物生态学，生物成像，蛋白质设计/工程，合成生物学，微流体/生物MEMS和毒理基因组学。该提案旨在显著扩大培训教师的人数，包括过去5年新聘请的9名教师，他们在该领域有活跃的研究项目。学生直接申请CSB博士。计划从他们的本科或硕士机构，并接受多和跨学科的培训，在计算和系统生物学领域。该提案寻求12个名额，以支持6名学生的前两年的博士学位，允许延长研究轮换和参与特殊计划活动。该计划的独特方面包括：（a）科学和工程领域的研究领域异常多样化，具有高度协作的跨学科教师;（B）最近开发的跨学科课堂科目的独特核心，结合了联合收割机生物学，工程学，统计学和计算学;（c）密集的咨询和多学科论文委员会，以优化来自不同学术背景的学生的培训经验;（d）每年举行一次务虚会，让学生和教职员参与，集中讨论研究、领导才能和跨学科研究的挑战。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective is to continue development of MIT's interdisciplinary predoctoral training program in Computational and Systems Biology (CSB), which trains students to become leaders in biomedical research at the interface of biology, computation and engineering. CSB is the primary training program at MIT for students interested in computational and systems biology and is the only program that emphasizes interdisciplinary training and research in the field. Program faculty are concentrated in the three founding departments - Biological Engineering (BE), Biology, and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS) - with additional involvement of faculty from other departments. Training faculty research interests span a wide range of CSB- related areas including computational molecular biology/regulatory genomics and evolution, molecular and cellular biophysics, systems biology of cancer and other diseases, proteomics, microbial ecology, bioimaging, protein design/engineering, synthetic biology, microfluidics/Bio-MEMS, and toxicogenomics. This proposal seeks to expand the pool of training faculty significantly, including 9 faculty newly hired in the past 5 years who have active research programs in the field. Students apply directly to the CSB Ph.D. program from their undergraduate or Master's institution and receive multi- and inter-disciplinary training in the field of computational and systems biology. The proposal seeks 12 slots to support 6 students for the first two years of the Ph.D., enabling extended research rotations and participation in special program activities. Unique aspects of the program include: (a) unusually diverse collection of research areas across science and engineering, with highly collaborative interdisciplinary faculty; (b) a unique core of recently developed, interdisciplinary classroom subjects that combine biology, engineering, statistics and computation; (c) intensive advising and multi- disciplinary thesis committees to optimize the training experience for students from diverse academic backgrounds; (d) an annual retreat with participation of students and faculty focusing on research, leadership, and challenges to interdisciplinary research.