Advances in radiopharmaceutical and radiotracer chemistry have made an enormous impact on the practice of health care. Yet, the shortage of PhD chemists in this multidisciplinary area persists even though it was documented in a National Research Council report in 1988. This shortage places a sense of urgency on developing mechanisms, which accomplish the dual goals of providing a solid graduate training in modern synthetic chemistry and radiochemistry while at the same time providing students with research experience and exposure in the multidisciplinary area of radiopharmaceutical and radiotracer chemistry. This T32 Application in Radiopharmaceutical and Radiotracer Chemistry is a multi-institutional graduate student training program. The overall plan of the proposal is to build a firm foundation in chemical principles, coupled with a dissertation that emanates from research conducted with individuals at three highly respected institutions (University of Missouri-Columbia (MU-Columbia), Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI)). We expect the selected T32 Fellows to be more adventurous and self- motivated than a typical graduate student in order to accomplish the objectives we describe. The value- added approach of this proposal is that the T32 Fellows will learn not only fundamental techniques at three different sites, but will also be trained in recognizing the """"""""big questions"""""""" currently facing biomedical science and how molecular imaging/therapy can be used. They will gain a more comprehensive view of the field that generally only comes after the combined experiences of graduate, postdoctoral, and job training. We firmly believe that the cross-fertilization inherent in this program will provide the T32 Fellows a mechanism to experience the scientific world they are entering before they conduct postgraduate training. Their postdoctoral training will thereby be much more focused and much more productive. Ten PhD candidates will matriculate over an initial five year period. We expect the Fellows will have successfully (1) fullfilled the PhD requirements at MU-Columbia, (2) completed multidisciplinary research, and (3) experienced an extended internship at either BNL or the NCI followed by a shorter internship at the second site. Graduates of this program will be future participants in the field by completing this program;however, we aspire for them to become the future leaders in the field, teaching our future generations.
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