The education of new investigators is essential to our progress in the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. The Tumor Biology Training Program provides a comprehensive curriculum for the career development of pre- and postdoctoral trainees, interested in basic, as well as more applied approaches to cancer research. This Training Program has a distinctly multidisciplinary orientation, centered on the Lombardi Cancer Center (LCC), a long standing, matrix-type Cancer Center. The LCC recently recruited an outstanding new Director, Dr. Richard Pestell, and renewed its NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center status. A central feature of our Tumor Biology program is its strong cancer focus, with both population sciences and clinical-translational interactions. State-of- the-art cancer research training is available in the laboratories of the participating faculty, while formal courses, seminars, journal clubs, and special interest group meetings contribute to a distinctly interdisciplinary educational experience for pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Over the past 10 years, the Tumor Biology Training Program has made significant advances. First, we have become a Ph.D. degree-granting program, allowing us to focus our training specifically on cancer and take full advantage of the basic and clinical resources of the LCC. Second, our faculty has developed more than a dozen cancer-specific new courses for this training program, and continues to create more. We have incorporated for our trainees significant exposure to clinical concepts through courses, involvement in weekly clinical conferences and seminars, and through monthly Oncology Grand Rounds, that focus on translational cancer research. We have increased the number of underrepresented minorities (URM) in the program, such that in 2002 we have 30% URM students in the entering predoctoral class. As our reputation has grown, so has our program, and each year we attract a larger pool of ever more qualified candidates. Upon our prior renewal of the training grant in June, 2002 we initiated the T32-funded portion of our postdoctoral program. We have received many outstanding applicants, and we filled the 2002 T32 postdoctoral slots with two outstanding candidates, one of whom is an URM fellow. Over the next years we will continue to strengthen the numerous resources we have developed for our Ph.D. and Postdoctoral Training Program. The continued support of this Program will allow us to maintain our mission of focused, high quality mentorship for initiation of careers of successful new investigators, by further improving our excellent track record of academic productivity and by placement of trainees in academic cancer research positions. ? ?
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