This proposal requests funds for continuation of the Molecular Biophysics Training Program at Vanderbilt University at the level of eight trainees at the beginning of the proposed funding period, rising to ten in the final year. Thirty-five training faculty offer training opportunities in a wide range of problems in Molecular Biophysics using a broad spectrum of physical, chemical, and computation approaches. Though the Program draws its training faculty from seven different departments, its is rooted in an established network of highly collaborative research and educational efforts. Trainees are offered the opportunity to earn a Ph.D. in any of the seven disciplinary areas represented by the training faculty: Biochemistry, Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Pathology, Pharmacology, or Physics, or they may develop a Ph.D. program of Individual Studies in Molecular Biophysics. All trainees, without regard to area of concentration, complete a core curriculum. The intent of the core curriculum is to provide trainees who choose a biological sciences concentration a deeper grounding in the physical sciences than is typical for those areas and to provide trainees who choose a physical sciences concentration a more thorough exposure to the biological sciences than is usual for students in those areas. As part of the core curriculum, all trainees participate in the Graduate Seminar in Molecular Biophysics. The Graduate Seminar in Molecular Biophysics is viewed as a focal point for the Program, in which trainees who employ diverse approaches to problems in Molecular Biophysics develop a common language and cross-fertilize each other's ideas.
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