This proposal describes an environmental health sciences predoctoral training program at the University of Louisville. It is a dynamic partnership between the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Pharmacology & Toxicology, both of which have long-standing successful graduate programs. The training program benefits from their combined faculty, research, and programmatic strengths. The state-of-the art training program is enhanced through active participation and interaction with six interdisciplinary research centers: 1) Center for Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences 2) Center for Genetics and Molecular Medicine, and 3) Institute for Public Health Research, 4) Birth Defects Center, 5) James Graham Brown Cancer Center, and 6) Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law. Trainees rotate through faculty laboratories to receive interdisciplinary research training and to select dissertation research projects focusing in four areas of environmental health science research: 1) environmental genomics, 2) basic mechanisms of environmental insult, 3) reproductive health and 4) environmental cardiology. A core curriculum provides an interdisciplinary academic foundation in biochemistry and molecular biology, pharmacology and toxicology, cell biology, genetics, epidemiology, biostatistics, research methods and bioethics. Initially student recruitment and funding for predoctoral trainees is provided by the University of Louisville School of Medicine Integrated Programs in the Biomedical Sciences recruitment gateway. Funds are requested to support two predoctoral trainees/year beginning in their second year. The training program will begin with four trainees and increase to eight trainees as the program matures. Several interdisciplinary program projects and core facilities also strengthen student training. The University of Louisville has increased its commitment to health science research and infrastructure, graduate education, and minority recruitment, making this training program particularly timely.
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