This revised application requests funds to initiate a new predoctoral and postdoctoral training program in basic neuroscience as it relates to neurodegenerative disease. The program will build on existing training programs, an NINDS-funded Program Project on basal ganglia and parkinsonism headed by the program Director of this application. These training and research programs have already helped to develop and integrate diverse elements of the basic neuroscience community at the University of Pittsburgh and to strengthen its ties to clinical neuroscience. If funded, the addition of pre- and postdoctoral positions provided by NINDS would provide the critical mass needed to recruit the best possible pre- and postdoctoral students (including underrepresented minority students) and to offer a training program of the highest quality. Our proposed program focusses primarily on research training. However, predoctoral students will take a series of core courses in neuroscience and other areas of basic biological science, a course in clinical neuroscience, and advanced seminars, and pass through a series of """"""""milestones,"""""""" including a comprehensive exam. Postdoctoral trainees will attend courses and seminars as needed. In addition, both groups will participate actively in a series of professional development workshops. These workshops provide explicit training in such """"""""survival skills"""""""" as written and oral communication, obtaining jobs and grants, teaching and managing a research lab. Training in responsible conduct is an integral part of both the survival skill workshops and the core curriculum itself. Students are encouraged to consider a wide range of employment opportunities within which to exercise their skills in research and seminars are held to permit them to become familiar with employment both within and outside of traditional academic research universities. Members of the training faculty come primarily from the Department of Neuroscience. Other participating departments and centers include the Departments of Neurobiology, Neurology, Pathology, and Pharmacology, Psychiatry, and the Center for Neuroscience. Two groups of faculty are described: a core group of full faculty , consisting of individuals with extensive experience in training and in research, and a small group of """"""""pro- faculty"""""""" who have outstanding promise and will be available to serve as co-mentors in conjunction with a more senior faculty member. Data are provided to support our belief that we will be able to obtain outstanding trainees for the proposed program.
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