The NIEHS Training Program in Environmental Health Sciences has supported 62 former pre-doctoral and 24 former postdoctoral trainees since 1996. Forty-three former pre-doctoral and 20 former postdoctoral trainees are in career positions in the private sector/industry, government or academia. Combined, current and former trainees have published over 300 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Consistent with the new NIEHS T32 guidelines, this Training Program has been restructured and has a new mission, goals and research foci. The mission of the Training Program is to actively prepare research scientists to become future leaders of individual and interdisciplinary research projects that seek to understand the role that environmental exposures play in the etiology and exacerbation of human disease at the individual and population level. The mission will be accomplished by providing support for pre- and postdoctoral trainees involved in research on the role of exposures to environmental agents (e.g. various chemicals, metals, particulates, fungal or bacterial-derived toxicants) as causative agents or co-factors in human disease. Trainee research will focus on one or more of the following: Mechanisms of exposures to environmental agents that alter biological processes that contribute to disease pathobiology;Development of biomarkers of disease pathobiology (e.g., biomarkers of response, effect, and susceptibility to toxic agents);Development of intervention strategies based upon mechanistic studies to prevent adverse effects that contribute to disease caused by exposure to environmental agents;and Epidemiology to identify population-based associations of environmental agents with disease. The research of the training faculty is focused on investigations on the contributions of environmental agents to the following diseases: cancer, immune system diseases, neurological diseases, pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, and reproductive and developmental diseases. The research being conducted by the faculty together with pre-doctoral and postdoctoral trainees addresses one or more of the following: 1) mechanisms of disease pathobiology;2) development of biomarkers of the pathobiology (e.g. biomarkers of response, effect, susceptibility);3) development of prevention/intervention strategies;and 4) disease epidemiology. BACKGROUND This Training Program is in its twenty-fifth year. Over the years, this Training Program has evolved and continues to evolve in order to respond to the new NIEHS guidelines. The program is both interdisciplinary and interdepartmental. The academic departments that are involved in the current application are the Departments of Environmental Health Sciences, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Epidemiology. As a part of the response to the new NIEHS guidelines, a new mission statement and new goals have been developed. Faculty members whose research focus does not encompass the new mission are no longer members so that the number of faculty members that are involved in the training faculty has been reduced to 26. Additionally, there is a shift in the number of requested support for pre-doctoral and postdoctoral positions. The move is from 20 pre-doctoral positions to 14 and from 3 postdoctoral positions to 7.
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