The primary purpose of this broadly based multidisciplinary Training Program is to prepare students for biomedical research careers in schools of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, in research institutes, and in governmental or industrial laboratories. A major goal is to provide trainees with a program in which they will be exposed to several areas of biomedical research relevant to modern pharmacology. The areas of research emphasis represented by the 40 training faculty include transmembrane signaling, cell growth control and molecular recognition, substance abuse, and molecular toxicology. Training faculty represent 13 departments and two Centers at Emory. The most important component of training is laboratory research, first as a series of three research rotations, then in the dissertation laboratory. This training is complemented by core courses in pharmacology that emphasize quantitative analysis of drug action, including receptor structure and function, courses in biochemistry/molecular biology and biostatistics, and advanced courses in specialty areas; by seminar courses and by journal clubs. Emphasis throughout is placed on oral presentation skills; students make formal oral presentations of their own work or that in the literature on numerous occasions before their dissertation defense. The Program is designed to support two students the first year, increasing to six per year by year 3. The student who completes the predoctoral training program will have acquired broad familiarity with pharmacology, knowledge in depth in the area of dissertation research, the ability to search, read critically and report on the literature of the biomedical sciences, mastery of a variety of laboratory techniques useful in modem biomedical research, skill in planning and executing a research project, ability to write clear, accurate scientific reports for publication, and ability to present effectively the results of research. A large percentage of the previous trainees of the core faculty have obtained postdoctoral training and then secured desirable positions in academic or industrial institutions; they continue to be productive in biomedical sciences.
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