Research Training in Inherited Neurological Disease

University Of Utah, Salt Lake City UT

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) This is a revised application for a grant to create a program in Research Training in Inherited Neurologic Diseases at the University of Utah. Nineteen faculty members serve as research preceptors for trainees, and the faculty consists of both physician-scientists and basic scientists. Research groups participating in the Training Program include the Neuromuscular Division (Dept. of Neurology); the Division of Medical Genetics (Dept. of Pediatrics); and the Departments of Human Genetics, Neurobiology and Anatomy, and Ophthalmology. Areas represented include genetics of movement disorders, genetics of demyelinating disorders, studies of virally-mediated gene transfer, and targeted gene disruption through homologous recombination. Research opportunities for trainees include exposure to large kindreds for linkage mapping and genotype/phenotype correlation studies, and exposure to modern techniques of molecular biology, genetic epidemiology, linkage analysis, and genomic analysis. A plan is presented for a highly focused two-year postdoctoral training program, with a didactic curriculum as part of the first year which will provide the trainee with the necessary background and knowledge base for clinical research. This application requests support for one physician-scientist post-doctoral trainee in the first year, and two trainees in each of the subsequent years. In addition, in response to comments in the previous review, funding support is requested for two predoctoral candidates per year, to be competitively selected from trainees within the University's multidisciplinary Neuroscience and Molecular Biology programs.