The Interdisciplinary Program in Neurosciences (IPN) at Georgetown University is a broad-based, transdisciplinary, non-departmental program leading to a Ph.D. in Neuroscience. The program, established in 1994, trains students in the scholarly pursuit of research in integrative neuroscience, from the cell to the intact behaving organism. The 32 core training faculty and 17 supporting faculty are drawn from 12 clinical and basic science departments on the Main Campus and Medical Center; they span a breadth of inquiry, ranging from neurotransmitter receptors and signal transduction, to behavior and human disease. Areas of research strengths include 1) neural injury, degeneration, and plasticity; 2) synaptic modulation and signal transduction; 4) neural substrates of autism, epilepsy, and addiction; and 5) telencephalic neural networks subserving sensory processing, memory and language. Students gain training in a range of approaches, including molecular, genetic, neurophysiological, cognitive testing, and imaging techniques. Training Grant funds support prethesis training (8 slots during the first 2 years); research grants and individual fellowships support thesis research. The program enrolls 40-50 thesis and prethesis students. Aggressive recruitment of underrepresented racial and ethnic applicants continues to be a top priority. The training environment fosters interactive, pandisciplinary research of both faculty and trainees. Over 40% of the core training faculty are in close proximity in the Research Building, with state-of-the-art core facilities and custom designed laboratory and office space. Faculty are highly collaborative; students are encouraged to seek co-mentorship between faculty with interfacing interests and complementary approaches. All core training faculty have research grant support and fully equipped facilities for training pre-and postdoctoral students. The recent recruitment of several neuroscience faculty into the Department of Pharmacology, and the growth of the Department of Neuroscience, has expanded the equipment, facilities and faculty expertise available to the training program. The training program includes broad-based didactic coursework, as well as rotations in laboratories of the training faculty. The trainees participate in a seminar series, national professional meetings, journal clubs, intensive laboratory research, and training in several essential professional skills (writing and reviewing manuscripts, grantsmanship, mentorship, teaching, conflict resolution, career choices, oral presentations) and their ethical dimensions. Opportunities for gaining practical teaching experience at the undergraduate and secondary school levels are abundant and encouraged. ? ? ?
Showing the most recent 10 out of 40 publications
