The Eppley Institute is an academic unit of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) with its sole focus on basic cancer research. It is a major component of the NCI-designated UNMC Eppley Cancer Center. UNMC has one of two NCI-designated Cancer Centers in a 6 state region of the heartland and has more than 125 faculty members involved in laboratory and clinical research. As such, the Eppley Institute and the Cancer Research Training Program (CRTP) play an important regional role in training future basic and clinical scientists. We recruit from a national pool of predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows. The NCI Training Grant supports a key part of the CRTP, which currently has 26 predoctoral and 42 postdoctoral fellows in training. The CRTP faculty have a wide variety of expertise in areas important for a broad-based cancer research training program, including biochemistry, cellular and structural biology, drug delivery, genetics, immunology, organic and medicinal chemistry, pathology pharmaceutics and pharmacodynamics, pharmacology, and clinical oncology. The Eppley Institute's CRTP does not grant a doctoral degree, and all entering graduate students have a chance to rotate with CRTP faculty before they pick a thesis advisor in one of the participating departments: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pathology and Microbiology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Pharmacology. A number of our trainees are directly involved in translational research activities, e.g., gene-targeted therapy for leukemia, role of catechol estrogens in human breast cancer, radioimmunoconjugate therapy and tumor vaccine development, development of tumor markers for gynecologic cancer. The goal of the training grant is to provide each doctoral student and postdoctoral fellow with the knowledge base, laboratory skills, and problem solving abilities to become independent, innovative cancer investigators.
The specific aims of the CRTP are to provide pre- and postdoctoral trainees with: (1) knowledge of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, the epidemiology of human cancer, and the potential for cancer prevention; (2) an in-depth background in the areas of basic science (biochemistry and molecular biology, genetics, immunology, pathology, pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacology) that is necessary to study and understand the conversion of normal cells to cancer cells and to design methods of diagnosis and treatment; (3) the ability to apply this information to plan and conduct innovative research on the causes, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer; and (4) an appreciation of the power of interdisciplinary research. To achieve these aims the CRTP must be able to attract highly qualified and motivated graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and provide them with high quality didactic and laboratory experiences.
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