The graduate program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) described here was established in 1987 by the faculty from seven different departments within Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) and Rutgers University (RU). The first NIH training grant was awarded in 1991 to support 4 trainees per year. In this application, we request continued support for 5 trainees per year over a 5-year period. The training program was established at this rapidly expanding life-science community at Piscataway Campus, where RWJMS and RU, although independent, share not only physical but also intellectual facilities forming a single life-science community. During the past five years, there were a number of notable developments, which strengthened and expanded the present program consisting of 19 faculty from the medical school and 10 faculty from RU. We now have three Howard Hughes professors (D. Reinberg, A. Stock, and R. Ebright) and three new faculty, (S. Patel, K. Severinov, Y. Wang). The program is highly multidisciplinary, and encompasses structural biology (E. Arnold, B. Brodsky, M. Inouye, G. Montelione, A. Stock), transcriptional regulation (R. Ebright, M. Hampsey, D. Reinberg, K. Severinov, A. Shatkin, L. Vales), translational regulation (M. Inouye, S. Peltz), DNA replication (S. Brill, S. Patel), cancer research and human diseases (C. Abate, S. Anderson, B. Brodsky, K. Chada, C. Gelinas, P. Lobel, K. Madura, D. Reinberg, M. Rosenberg, M. Roth, L. Vales, Y. Wang), as well as developmental biology (C. Abate, S. Brill, M. Driscoll, C. Gelinas, S. Inouye, P. Lobel, K. Madura, F. Matsumura, R. Morris, A. Shatkin), and plant molecular biology (D. Klessig, J. Messing). The faculty annual research funding has exceeded 20 million dollars. Significantly, a completely novel approach for recruiting trainees has been instituted since 1996. All five graduate programs (2 from RWJMS and 3 from RU) were reorganized to form a consolidated graduate program in Molecular BioSciences in order to jointly recruit and admit a first year class of outstanding graduate students including minorities. Now, more than 50% of our recruits are American, out of which, 1:4 or 25% are minority students. After their second year, students who choose our graduate program faculty as Ph.D. advisors will be members of this graduate program and subsequently trained by this program faculty. The best American students, judging from the first two year's performance, will be supported for their 3rd and 4th year using the fellowships requested.
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