Support is requested for training for 5 predoctoral and 1 postdoctoral trainee positions per year, in a university-wide training program in visual science, at the systems, cellular, and molecular levels. Training focuses on analysis of the visual pathways from eye to brain, and cellular, molecular and genetic aspects of the normal and diseased eye, in both basic science and disease-oriented research. Twenty-seven training faculty who are members of biomedical doctoral programs are distributed on two campuses of Columbia University: Twenty-two of these faculty are in basic and clinical science departments on the Health Sciences Campus, 168th Street and Broadway, and 5 are drawn from four departments from the main (Morningside) campus at 116th and Broadway. In late 2016, a majority of these faculty will move to the Greene building, 129th and Broadway in Manhattanville as part of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Section 1 (Systems/Computation) includes 14 faculty focused on the visual and oculomotor systems in humans and monkeys using neurophysiology, psychophysics, computational modeling, and imaging. These faculty are in the Departments of Psychology, Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience, with 7 investigators in the Mahoney Center studying the primate visual cortex. Six faculty in Section 2 (Development and Plasticity) focus on cell specification, retinal axon guidance, eye development, and biophysics and plasticity of dendrites and cortical circuitry, and are in the departments of Genetics, Pathology and Cell Biology, Neuroscience, and Biological Sciences. Section 3 (Molecular/Genetic Approaches to the Normal and Diseased Eye) is composed of 7 faculty in the Department of Ophthalmology, Biochemistry, Medicine, and Pediatrics, who study retinal degeneration, retinoid processing, and the genetics, diagnostics and therapy of retinal disorders, with a focus on age-related macular degeneration and retinal edema. The research carried out by the mentors and trainees matches the goals in NEI's promotion of eye and vision research, including the Audacious Goals Initiative. Support is sought for up to three years for predoctoral students who have chosen their lab and mentor, and for one year for a postdoctoral trainee. Trainees will be recruited from selective graduate programs such as the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, and Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, both of which host MD-PhD students, and by advertisement. Through activities such as courses, thesis committees, symposia, seminars, and the Greater New York Vision Club (VisioNYC), it is expected that faculty and trainees will interact, collaborate, and produce a new generation of vision scientists who will elucidate information processing, development, and disease in the visual system.
The goal of the proposed program is to support student and postdoctoral trainees in vision research - to expand their understanding of current basic and clinical issues on the eye and visual pathways, and to provide professional development in academic and science-allied careers. Areas of program strength include studies of higher-level influences on visual perception, of development and cellular organization of visual circuitry, and of genetics and cell biology of retinal degeneration. This training is critical to the next generation of scientists who will tackle perturbations of vision at these levels.
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