PURPOSE AND PROGRAM CHARACTERISTICS: This proposal represents a continuation of a training program in the biochemistry of growth regulation and oncogenesis, now entering its eighteenth year. The training faculty is drawn from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD, and also from the Department of Biology and the UCSD School of Medicine. In this renewal, the training faculty has been strengthened by the addition of several outstanding junior faculty members. During the past project period, two of the training faculty were elected to the National Academy of Sciences, in addition to two others elected during the previous five-year period. The training faculty believes that an understanding of normal and abnormal growth control can best be achieved through the study of pathways involving protein kinases and phosphatases, intracellular signaling molecules, and transcriptional regulators. This program exhibits a unique emphasis on structural and molecular approaches. Training involves formal courses (for predoctoral candidates), journal clubs, seminar series, and biannual symposia of the trainees and training faculty. ? ? TRAINEES: Seven predoctoral and three postdoctoral trainees were funded during the past project period. Our current and past trainees have excellent records of research accomplishments. We have requested an increase in predoctoral training positions from seven to eight, and in postdoctoral training positions from three to five. These increases are justified by the enormous expansion currently underway at UCSD in undergraduate and graduate enrollments, by the ability of the training faculty to recruit outstanding predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees to their labs, and by the highly interactive nature of the training labs which collectively provide a superb training environment. Predoctoral trainees will continue to be drawn from the pool of biochemistry graduate students accepted into the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; postdoctoral trainees will be selected from postdoctoral candidates applying for positions in the laboratories of the training faculty. Web pages have been maintained and expanded which describe our training program in order to enhance the recruitment. All trainees accepted into our program are expected to have strong backgrounds in chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular and cell biology.
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