The field of developmental biology has matured in recent years, largely through the integration of much of the biological sciences, including genetics, cell biology, embryology, physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and evolutionary biology. An understanding of development may well be fundamental to much of medicine and may ultimately contribute important information to many problems, ranging from congenital defects to senescence. The focus for developmental biology at the University of Minnesota is provided by the DBC, which is based in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development (DGCB&D), an all-university department within both the School of Medicine and the College of Biological Sciences. However, the DBC embraces members from other departments within the University such as Neuroscience and Plant Biology. The DBC organizes a popular annual University of Minnesota Developmental Biology Symposium, runs a series of evening research seminars in developmental biology where graduate students and postdoctoral researchers present their work, and promotes interactions and collaborations among developmental biologists at the University of Minnesota. The trainers are all members of the Center and work in diverse areas of developmental biology using many different model organisms, including mice, chickens, zebrafish, Xenopus, Drosophila, C. elegans, Dictyostelium, and Arabidopsis, as well as humans. The principal graduate program for developmental biology trainees is the Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics (MCDB&G) graduate program. This program is built around strong core graduate courses in laboratory techniques, molecular biology, genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, literature analysis, and laboratory rotations in diverse systems. The trainers have strong research programs and strong records of commitment to graduate and postdoctoral training. Eight predoctoral trainees will be chosen for training grant support, largely from the pool of graduate students in MCDB&G, but possibly also from other graduate programs, such as neuroscience and biochemistry, molecular biology and biophysics. Trainees will be supported for one to three years, after they have begun their thesis work in the laboratories of the trainers. The training laboratories and core facilities are all well equipped.
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