Research during the past several decades has made impressive advances in our understanding of the genetic basis of cancer and the aberrant signaling components and mechanisms that drive cancer progression and malignant growth. In recent years, the completion of the sequencing of the human and more recently, of multiple cancer cell genomes, coupled with the rapid development of technologies for the genome-wide genetic, cellular and biochemical profiling of the cancer cell has greatly accelerated these advances. This pace will surely be accelerated exponentially in the future. The accumulation of new information is both impressive and daunting. Therefore, a major challenge of the next decade will be to translate basic cancer research advances into new molecularly targeted cancer therapies. The premise of the Cancer Cell Biology Training Program (CCBTP) is that cancer biology is a unique, interdisciplinary biomedical science that encompasses experimental approaches and didactic knowledge from cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, immunology, microbiology, pharmacology, epidemiology, toxicology, pathology, and physiology. Doctoral students will become well-trained in the paradigms of molecular and cellular biology from more traditional department- or curriculum-based training programs. Rarely will they receive significant training in the pathobiology and treatment of cancer. With an increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary, translational, disease-oriented research, the need to address this deficiency in graduate student training has become of greater urgency. Thus, the broad goal of this program is to provide comprehensive training in translational cancer biology to allow students to effectively contribute to the new wave of translational research. The CCBTP provides a strong emphasis on the histopathology of cancer and exposure to other topics crucial to tumor biology, in particular personalized medicine and molecularly targeted anti-cancer drug discovery and development. Therefore, it fosters the training of doctoral candidates who are uniquely trained and who are clearly distinguished from those of individual departments or other training programs funded by the National Institutes of Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Biomedical research doctoral students are well trained in the paradigms of molecular and cellular biology of cancer, but rarely do these students receive significant training in the pathobiology and treatment of cancer. With an increasing emphasis on translational, disease- oriented research, the need to address this deficiency in graduate student training has become of major urgency. This proposal is for continuation for an interdisciplinary Cancer Cell Biology Training Program for predoctoral students at the University for North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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