This application requests continued support for a Postdoctoral Training Program, now in its 30th year, designed to produce well-trained independent researchers in the area of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Funds are requested to support 8 fellows per year (levels 0-2), with the average duration of support being two years. This multidisciplinary program has three broad areas of training: pharmacology, genetics, and behavior. These areas are covered by 28 well-funded training faculty preceptors, who focus both on basic and clinical alcohol/drug abuse research. The majority of the faculty currently on the grant will continue to participate. A number of units within the Denver and Boulder campuses of the University of Colorado are involved: the Departments of Pharmacology, Psychiatry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Psychology, Integrative Physiology, and Medicine/Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology;the Institute for Behavioral Genetics;the Colorado component of the NIAAA-funded Integrated Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism (INIA);and the NIDA-funded Center for the Genetics of Antisocial Drug Dependence. Trainees with doctoral degrees are recruited from a broad range of disciplines. Concerted efforts have been made to recruit trainees from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups and to contribute to longer-term programs to """"""""fill the pipeline."""""""" Trainees work primarily in one lab, but collaborative interactions with other preceptors and trainees are strongly encouraged. All of the preceptors use state-of-the-art pharmacological, genetic, genomic and/or behavioral approaches. Training in quantitative and molecular genetics, combined with a broad range of pharmacological approaches, allows the fellows to dissect the molecular, cellular, and genetic bases for behavioral reactions to drugs and the environment and susceptibility to alcohol addiction. Another important characteristic of this Training Program is the opportunity for trainees to participate in interactions between basic science and clinical practice. Contact with other faculty and trainees through a regular seminar series and various courses, including Ethics in Research, complete the training environment. Trianees are also encouraged to write individual NRSAs and present their work in local seminars, as well as at national and international meetings. Past trainees from this program have been very successful, and a number are continuing to make significant contributions in the alcohol and drug abuse fields.
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