Doctoral Studies in Molecular Biophysics

描述(由申请人提供)：卫斯理大学分子生物物理学博士项目的三名NIGMS研究生实习生申请继续提供支持。我们的项目是大学研究生部的一个跨学科、跨部门的项目。学生通过研究生课程、论文研究、每周期刊俱乐部、年度静修、研讨会、小组会议、研讨会和教学见习来攻读博士学位。科学伦理和生命科学研究的历史和知识基础在课程中占有重要地位。通过一个强大的“科学前沿”计划，课程设置得到了加强，该计划将访客吸引到校园来参加研讨会、系列讲座和对个别课程的贡献。为了提供广泛的培训，我们鼓励教员研究小组之间的合作项目以及实验者和理论家之间的互动。由于少数族裔学生和女性在我们的领域和整个科学领域的代表性不足，我们的方案强调招募代表性不足的群体，我们在培训女性科学家方面有特殊的方案利基和成就记录。我们目前和提议的项目涉及化学系的五名教员，分子生物学和生物化学(MB&B)的三名教员，生物学和物理系的一名教员。除了我们的两名新助理教授，所有教职员工都有来自NIH、NSF和其他资金来源的外部资助，用于他们的研究项目。卫斯理大学是一所规模较小、高度挑剔的大学，在本科阶段强调文科和理科，并设有理科学士、学士/硕士和博士课程。分子生物物理学方面的补充本科证书课程已经建立。这个项目和我们的学士/硕士项目在帮助学生进入其他大学的分子生物物理学和相关领域的研究生课程方面有着很好的记录。我们的园区环境、物理厂房、实验室和计算设施(戴尔266节点PC群集)为研究提供了绝佳的场所。作为对先前批评的回应，我们在缩短博士学位的完成时间以及少数族裔的招聘和参与方面取得了实质性进展。目前，在我们的项目中，两名代表不足的少数民族学生正在攻读博士学位，他们的资金来自我们的积极培训资助。随着X射线结晶学的增加，膜蛋白结构生物学的相关新举措，以及涉及生物材料的信号转导和纳米科学研究，我们的计划得到了显著加强，所有这些都体现在为博士生提供的新课程和研究机会中。这是卫斯理唯一由联邦政府资助的培训项目。这一要求伴随着大量的机构承诺，特别是为所有非NIH参与的博士生提供助教的研究生津贴。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Continuation of support is requested for three NIGMS graduate traineeships in the Doctoral Program in Molecular Biophysics at Wesleyan University. Our program is an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental program in the Graduate Division of the University. Students pursue doctoral studies via graduate courses, dissertation research, a weekly journal club, an annual retreat, workshops, group meetings, seminars, and teaching apprenticeships. Scientific ethics and the historical and intellectual foundations of life science research figure significantly in the curriculum. Course offerings are enhanced by a robust "Frontiers of Science" program, which brings visitors to campus for seminars, lecture series and contribution to individual courses. To provide breadth of training, we encourage collaborative projects among faculty research groups and interactions between experimentalists and theoreticians. Since minority students and women are underrepresented in our field and in science overall, our program emphasizes recruitment of underrepresented groups and we have a particular programmatic niche and record of achievement in training women scientists. Our current and proposed program involves five faculty members from the Department of Chemistry, three from Molecular Biology and Biochemistry (MB&B), one from Biology and one from Physics. All faculty members except our two new Assistant Professors have extramurally funded grants from NIH, NSF and other funding sources for their research programs. Wesleyan University is a small, highly selective university emphasizing the liberal arts and sciences at the undergraduate level with BA, BA/MA and PhD programs in the sciences. A complementary undergraduate certificate program in Molecular Biophysics has been established. This and our BA/MA program have a strong record of feeding students to graduate programs in Molecular Biophysics and related areas at other universities. Our campus setting, physical plant, laboratory and computing facilities (a Dell 266 node PC Cluster) provide an excellent venue for research. In response to previous critiques, we have made substantial progress in improving completion time to the PhD and in minority recruiting and participation. Currently, two under-represented minority students pursuing PhD studies in our program are funded from our active training grant. Our program has been measurably strengthened with the addition of x-ray crystallography, related new initiatives in the structural biology of membrane proteins and signal transduction and nanoscience research involving biological materials, all of which are represented in new course offerings and research opportunities for PhD students. This is the only federally funded training program at Wesleyan. This request comes with a substantial institutional commitment, in particular graduate stipends as TAs for all non-NIH participating PhD students.