A new training program is proposed that is being offered jointly by faculty on the Busch campus of the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University. The program is designed to train both pre- and postdoctoral students with a specific and strong emphasis on understanding developmental and molecular mechanisms of mental illness. The goal of the predoctoral program is to provide graduate students with basic academic training in subfields of neuroscience and to broaden their training in research methodologies relevant to the study of mental illness. An emphasis is placed on understanding developing systems and t he regulation and maintenance of functional circuits once they are established. The postdoctoral program provides the trainees with information and techniques that will allow them to establish independent research programs in the area of mental illness. Research areas of specialization include molecular and cell biology, behavior, biophysics, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neuropharmacology. Both predoctoral and postdoctoral programs utilize structured and unstructured components to meet the training goals. The training is integrated across different disciplines of the highly interactive faculty, many of whom have arrived at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Rutgers University within the past 5 years. Predoctoral candidates are drawn from two Ph.D. programs, Neurobiology and physiology and molecular Bioscience. The basic curriculum is based on courses offered in these programs by faculty of the Medical School and College of Arts and Sciences, with specific courses relating to the central theme of the training program incorporated into the studies of each trainee. Postdoctoral candidates will have access to all course offerings that are relevant to the research theme of the training program. Both pre- and postdoctoral trainees will have available a variety of other activities and facilities in addition to the primary interaction between trainee and mentor. These include seminars, journal clubs, progress report, meetings and affinity research groups. The progress of the trainees is monitored routinely through these various training components and communicated to the Administrative Committee and Program Director. In the present proposal, support for 5 predoctoral and 5 postdoctoral trainees is requested. The predoctoral trainees must have strong undergraduate training in the biological or biochemical sciences while the postdoctoral fellows must have relevant research training and experience, as well as appropriate future scientific and academic goals.
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