The Developmental Genetics Training Program at Tufts New England Medical Center (T-NEMC) and Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) will provide physicians and predoctoral students with strong training in developmental genetics and the genetics of inherited diseases that can impact fetal, neonatal, and maternal health. The proposed faculty of 25 is drawn from T-NEMC and TUSM, and includes basic and translational researchers who hold M.D., Ph.D., and M.D./Ph.D. degrees. Three postdoctoral trainees will be recruited from the ACGME-accredited fellowship programs in Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, and Medical Genetics based at T-NEMC, and three predoctoral trainees will be recruited from the Ph.D. programs in Genetics and Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at TUSM each year. Trainees will share a common training experience with rigorous exposure to bench and translational research. The program will promote interaction among pediatricians, medical geneticists, and obstetricians who treat patients and basic scientists who focus on genetic mechanisms of disease, thereby helping each group understand the impact of the other's work. Research training will be complemented by common courses on fundamentals of genetics, developmental genetics, ethics, and a course on the pathobiology of genetic and developmental diseases that is co-taught by basic scientists and physicians. Seminars, presentation workshops, hospital-based genetics rounds, and career counseling round out the program. By integrating basic and clinical faculty, the proposed trainees will acquire a deeper and richer knowledge of basic genetic mechanisms and contemporary clinical problems. The goal is to produce basic science faculty who can be productive in multidisciplinary, translational environments and clinician scientists who will be become independent, funded investigators addressing problems relevant to the health of mothers and children at risk for developmental disability or inherited disorders.
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