A community of investigators seeks new support for a predoctoral training program in microbial pathogenesis and host responses at the University of Wisconsin. This topic area has long been important due to the prevalence and consequences of infectious diseases, and now its significance is re-emphasized by dangers of bioterrorism and the ever-widening demonstration of previously unrecognized infectious or immunological etiologies for human maladies. The Microbiology Doctoral Training Program (MDTP) is a highly ranked graduate program that enrolls approximately 20-25 students each year as a source of trainees. """"""""Microbial pathogenesis"""""""" is the largest of the MDTP subdisciplinary areas self-identified for affiliation by the approximately 80 MDTP faculty. The separate interlab Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Responses Group (MPHRG) holds regular meetings, hosts invited outside speakers, and has a website and listserver. The Dept. of Medical Microbiology & Immunology is a central core of both MDTP and MPHRG, and offers relevant didactic, journal club, and seminar courses. Instruction is provided in prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial pathogenesis, virology and viral pathogenesis, and immunology and infectious diseases, as well as in responsible conduct of research. There is a student research seminar series, a journal club course, and regularly scheduled guest speakers. Our 20 trainers and two affiliates span 10 departments in three colleges. All trainers are productive scientists with proven NIH R01 or equivalent funding track records and extensive graduate training experience; most are tenured (11 full, 5 associate professors). Promising junior faculty may hold affiliate status, primed for trainer status upon development of funding and training experience. These faculty are interactive scientific colleagues dedicated to recruitment of outstanding graduate students including focused efforts for minority candidates. They are committed to predoctoral mentoring, and didactic and research training. Trainers cooperatively participate in course teaching and provide students with lab homes for research rotations and thesis work. Each graduate student is mentored by a thesis committee consisting of the thesis advisor and four other faculty members, and all program trainees are co-mentored by virtue of joint trainer service on thesis committees. The program and its trainers are held in high regard in the scientific community, and the success of the training program is demonstrated by the typical progress of its graduates into competitive postdoctoral training positions and subsequently into academic, industry, or government research careers.
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