The Malaria Section at the Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), University of Maryland School of Medicine has been providing training opportunities for scientists from African and Latin American countries for several years. The Malaria Research and Training Center (MRTC) at the University of Malaria also has extensive training experience, and is widely recognized as a center of excellence in Africa for malaria research and training in malaria research and control. We propose to build on this diverse and extensive training experience to develop a formal malaria research training program in a close collaboration with the MRTC, in the context of an ongoing research project supported by contract N01-AI- 85346 from NIAID, funded through September 2003. This project has a substantial field component, and training will be available in clinical trials, epidemiology and biostatistics, molecular biology, immunology, and entomology. Training will take place in both the U.S. and Malaria. Training faculty and facilities will be drawn from the CVD and MRTC as well as from collaborating laboratories and institutions. Training will be provided to: 1) Junior researchers at MRTC who are completing or have recently completed M.D. or Pharm.D. degrees at the University of Mali School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry; and 2) MRTC post-doctoral researchers who have recently completed Ph.D. studies in the U.S. or Europe and are attempting to establish their research programs. The first group will enroll in Master's or Ph.D. programs at the University of Mali. Four of these student trainees will spend 9 months each year receiving hands-on research training in Mali, under the supervision of Malian and U.S. training faculty, and 3 months each year in the U.S. receiving didactic and/or practical research training. The post-doctoral researchers will be supported by direct research mentoring and collaboration with U.S. and Malian training faculty and by provision of start-up funds to purchase supplies or small equipment or support field activities to generate preliminary data that will form the basis for applying for external grant funding.
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