This is a renewal application for a longstanding training program that is now focussed, providing pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees with intensive research experience in the areas of synapses, ion channels and transduction, while ensuring that the trainees have a thorough grounding in the basic neurosciences. The approaches involve the use of advanced molecular biological, physical, chemical, electrical, mathematical, and computational techniques to study fundamental questions in these closely related areas of cellular and molecular neuroscience. Pre-doctoral trainees will enter the program after taking an interdisciplinary group of graduate courses and specialized courses tailored to their needs and after selecting a mentor on the training faculty. Under the mentors direction they will design and execute an original research project, culminating in a Ph.D. degree. Post-doctoral trainees are offered a choice of research topics from which they develop their own independent projects. All trainees receive much individual attention from program faculty and are exposed to a variety of pertinent research activities. Trainees give research presentations and participate in seminars and journal clubs with a large and closely interacting group of neuroscientists. The trainees also take part in career and ethics workshops and gain supervised teaching experience.
The aim of this training program is to produce a cadre of highly qualified scientists, capable of working at the forefront of their respective research areas, while being broadly knowledgeable in basic neuroscience and able to communicate effectively. The trainees will be qualified for diverse advanced positions in the biomedical sciences, ranging from academic to those in private industry and government. Accepted trainees must have strong academic credentials, with a clear interest in scientific inquiry. Support is requested for 2 pre-doctoral, 2 post-doctoral, and 4 shortterm (summer medical student) trainees. The neuroscience training program is conducted by 19 faculty members, each actively involved in teaching and research. These faculty have advanced laboratories, and are well funded through individual research grants. Primary research and training facilities are in the Medical Science Building at the Univ. of Miami School of Medicine.
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