Molecular and Cell Biology in Environmental Medicine

New York University School Of Medicine, New York NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) New York University Medical Center is a leader in producing academicians through interdisciplinary training programs in biomolecular medicine. Three academic programs (Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Environmental Medicine, and Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences) interact on the Environmental/Occupational Pulmonary Medicine training program in the basic sciences of cell and molecular biology research. The Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine has 50 full-time faculty, eight laboratories, and 15 NIH and CDCP grants. The Department/ Nelson Institute of Environmental Medicine has 60 full-time faculty and is in the 38th year of a NIEHS Center grant. The Sackler Institute has 112 faculty in the basic science departments and is expanding into the new Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine. We propose a two year research fellowship emphasizing environmental lung disease with patient-oriented research of asthma, fibrosis, lung cancer, and the pulmonary response to environmental toxicants. Studies are basic science oriented with emphases on cytokine and growth factor gene regulation, receptor expression and signal transduction, oncogenes, and tumor suppressor genes. The investigators recruited 29 preceptors with expertise in research fellowship training in mechanisms of disease pertinent to their mission in the environmental health sciences. They will continue to train physicians who have completed internal medicine residency and pulmonary clinical rotations in patient-oriented research of environmental lung disease. Nineteen of 22 research follows continue to pursue academic careers and 13 individuals are members of under-represented minorities. The principal investigator and co-principal investigator utilize a Research Training Committee to assist selecting, advising, and monitoring the progress of the trainees. Research fellows develop their own projects and practically all have presented their research at national meetings with publications appearing in peer-reviewed journals covering asthma, ozone, asbestosis, tuberculosis, lung cancer, silicosis, and gene therapy. The goal of the investigators? program is to train academicians to provide Environmental Occupational Pulmonary Medicine leadership for the 21st century.