Medical Genetics Postdoctoral Fellowship

Enter the text here that is the new abstract information for your application. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text. The goal of the University of Washington (UW) Postdoctoral Medical Genetics Training Program is to train the next generation of leaders in academic medical genetics and genomics. The UW Program offers comprehensive research and didactic training in human and medical genetics for physicians and for Ph.D. postdoctoral fellows. Specific objectives of this program include the recruitment, retention, and mentored research training of M.D.s, M.D./Ph.D.s, or translationally focused Ph.D.’s in human and medical genetics. Another specific objective of our program is to increase the medical genetics workforce by ensuring that training opportunities are open to all qualified individuals. Our training faculty are selected from the two Medical Genetics Divisions in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics, and the Department of Genome Sciences. Collectively, they represent research programs spanning clinical, mathematical, population, biochemical, molecular and developmental genetics, bioinformatics, and genomics. This provides a strong environment and support for preparing our trainees for careers in academic medical genetics. The curriculum includes: clinical conferences to understand the impact of genetic diseases on patients, journal clubs, didactic postdoctoral level course work relevant to genetics and genomics, and ethics training which meets the NIH requirements. The core training experience is a mentored research postdoctoral fellowship which prepares our trainees for successful careers in academic medical genetics. Each trainee selects an experienced research mentor from our large group of training faculty. They are expected to present progress on an original research project in lab meetings, progress to presenting the work in Medical Genetics seminars, at national meetings, and to prepare and submit work for peer-reviewed publication. During the research-intensive training period, the trainee progresses toward independence and working in an interdisciplinary team. Progress is monitored through a series of individual development plans and periodic mentor evaluations.