The proposed training program is based on an integration of nutrition with the physical, behavioral, and other biological sciences. Its strength and excellence in training nutrition scientists for the last 25 years are derived from this disciplinary integration. The program's objective is to provide trainees with a state-of-the-art understanding of the interrelationships among food intake, nutritional status, and functional capacities in health and disease. It also provides the skills necessary to design significant investigations; to identify, develop, and/or apply required methodologies; and to execute studies to advance knowledge in the nutritional sciences. The disciplines represented in this training include human nutrition and metabolism, physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology/genetics, analytical chemistry, toxicology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, epidemiology, and statistics. We propose to train 11 predoctoral trainees. They will be selected from among students who usually will have completed two years of graduate-level training. Trainees will interact with approximately 90 other graduate students in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, who come from about 20 different countries. This diversity provides a strong, supportive network of domestic and international colleagues during and after training. Available facilities include (1) a metabolic research unit (4900 sq ft) with in-patient facility for short-term, overnight supervision, (2) metabolic facilities at collaborating clinical institutions, (3) modern laboratory facilities (16,000 sq ft), including expanded capabilities in our stable isotope laboratory, (4) general university laboratory resources (e.g., Biotechnology Center), (5) AAALAC-accredited animal facilities (9,000 sq ft) plus planned transgenic mouse facilities (2500 sq. ft) assigned to the Division, (6) access to domestic and international field sites through affiliations with the USDA Extension Service and ties to leading international research organizations, and (8) networked central and on-site computing facilities.
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