This is a competing application for continued support of an NIAID sponsored multidisciplinary program of """"""""Research Training in Experimental Immunology"""""""" at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, now completing its tenth year. Faculty preceptors with interests in basic immunology and in immunological mechanisms of disease have been selected from the Departments of Pathology, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology, and Surgery. Each of the 18 investigators directs an active, highly regarded laboratory with a record of securing extramural research support. Dr. Richard A. Miller, the Program Director, has directed the Michigan program since its inception in 1992, and will work closely with a Steering Committee (Drs. Fantone, Fox, Kunkel, and Mule) to select trainees and formulate program policy. Predoctoral trainees will be selected from among students entering their second year of graduate study, i.e. after the student has successfully completed first year coursework and selected both a mentor and a PhD program. Most predoctoral trainees will be pursuing the PhD in Immunology, with a smaller number seeking the PhD in Pathology or in Microbiology under the supervision of an Immunology Preceptor. Predoctoral trainees will take courses in biochemistry, genetics, and immunology to prepare them for dissertation research in the labs of one of the Preceptors. Postdoctoral trainees will devote their effort to research in a Preceptor's laboratory. The training program will continue to sponsor three major activities: (a) a biweekly journal club at which trainees and faculty Preceptors meet for guided explorations of recent immunology papers; (b) a monthly seminar at which invited guest speakers from other universities present their research data and spend a day meeting with trainees and faculty members; and (c) a Research Colloquium course, whose topic and instructor varies each semester, that allows predoctoral students (and postdoctoral auditors) to read about, and discuss in depth, a series of important topics in modern cellular and molecular immunology. The program includes plans for training in research responsibility and for recruitment of talented members of under-represented minority groups. Support is requested for six predoctoral and two postdoctoral trainees each year, the same number of positions approved in 1998, and one more than the number funded by NIAID. Predoctoral trainees should leave the program well prepared for postdoctoral studies in nationally prominent immunology laboratories, and postdocs should emerge as strong candidates for independent faculty positions.
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