This competing continuation application requests support for 6 postdoctoral fellows for primary training in aspects of alcohol research related to 4 major tracks: (i) genetic epidemiology;(ii) gene discovery, (iii) developmental psychopathology and longitudinal studies, and (iv) cognitive neuroscience (principally involving electrophysiology studies). In addition to specialization in a primary discipline, trainees will be encouraged to obtain a sufficient familiarity with other focus areas to facilitate fruitful cross-disciplinary collaborations in their research careers. The training program will ordinarily be of 3 years duration, reflecting the diverse backgrounds of our applicant pool (e.g. clinical psychology, social work, psychiatry, mathematics, other behavioral science). The training program emphasizes a research apprenticeship model, combining research under the mentorship of one or more experienced research mentors with more formal training through didactic courses and seminar programs;
and aims to help trainees make progress on their pathway to independence through high-impact first author publications, refinement of research ideas that will support a first grant submission as PI, and assistance in collection of feasibility data to support a first submission. Six of 10 who have completed fellowships have successful NIH applications as PI;2 have applications in process;and 2 trained in an area (basic neuroscience) dropped in this competing application. Major strengths of the program are its affiliation with a flourishing Alcoholism Research Center, the availability of senior faculty with an extensive program of alcoholism research, representing expertise in many aspects of statistical, molecular and genetic epidemiologic research on alcoholism;the highly productive research environment;the availability of major genetic data-bases offering many opportunities for innovative analyses and high-impact publications;access to ongoing projects that offer many opportunities for trainees to obtain expertise in clinical research;the program's location in one of the nation's leading medical schools, allowing trainees to take advantage of a rich array of didactic courses and seminars and research experiences;and the long tradition of successful mentoring and research training of scientists and clinician scientists from diverse intellectual backgrounds.
Parent-to-child transmission of alcoholism often is characterized by genetic inheritance occurring in the context of high-risk environmental exposures associated with parental alcoholism. Trainees will learn to study this process through genetic including gene discovery-, longitudinal, and cognitive neuroscience approaches.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 50 publications
