The project is a constituent of the NIH Graduate Partnership Program and serves to coordinate the doctoral research training and the university-NIH interface. The project provides trainees with molecular and comparative pathology educational content suitable for graduate credit at partnership universities. The Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics, Molecular Pathology Unit (MPU) staff has responsibility for training and mentoring trainees. Trainees undertake pre-dissertation research within the MPU for which they receive university graduate course credit applicable for pursuing the Ph.D. degree as comparative biomedical scientists. The veterinary pathologists undertaking research training integrate pathology into the range of intramural research. Research topics include mechanisms of traumatic brain injury progression and protection, pandemic influenza A virus infection, atherosclerosis, myeloma genetics, prostate cancer metastasis, brain microenvironment in breast cancer metastasis, HIV neural reservoirs and cognitive dysfunction. In addition trainees investigate emergent human pathogens Nipah virus and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus and modeling oncogenic collaborating genes in leukemia. The educational infrastructure within the training consortium includes university collaboration with the Molecular Pathology Unit and builds upon an interdisciplinary and comparative orientation to problems in biomedical science. Program and trainee accomplishments for fiscal year 2015 include: Presently there are 14 pathologists in training, supported by all 4 of the NIH collaborating institutes. There are 5 program graduates who obtained PhD degrees. For the period of 2014 to present, current trainees have authored or co-authored 25 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles: 22 research, 1 review, and 2 clinical articles published in journals including: IntraVital, J Neurol, Atherosclerosis, Mol Cell Biol, Cancer Res, J Histochem Cytochem, Pigment Cell Melanoma Res, Antiviral Res, J Virol, J Infect Dis, , mBio, Dis Models Mech, Cell, PLoS ONE, Vet Pathol, JAMA Neurol, J Comp Pathol, J Natl Cancer Inst. Current trainees have achieved a variety of recognitions: 2015 NCI Directors' Innovation Award, 2014 NIH Directors' Award, 2014 NCI Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship Award, 4 awardees 2015 ACVP Young Investigator's Awards, 2014 International Mammalian Genome Conference outstanding poster award, 2015 Center for Cancer Research Fellows and Young Investigators Colloquium Outstanding Poster Award, 2014 Intersociety Council for Pathology Information Award, ACVP/ASIP Travel Award for the 2015 Experimental Biology Meeting in Boston, 2014 Thorp Graduate Student Travel Award, 2014 American Society for Virology Travel Award, 2014 NIH Mentor Award. 6 veterinary students participated in the 2015 NIH Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research (SIPBR) and trained in the labs of NCI, NINDS and NIAID.
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