UOFL ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES TRAINING PROGRAM

ABSTRACT We have made strategic changes in our environmental health sciences training program in response to the announced restructuring and redirection of NIEHS training programs. Participating Centers, Institutes, and Schools and the members of the training faculty provide critical resources for cutting edge basic science, clinical research, computational sciences and public health. Environmental health science partnerships have resulted in a very successful NIEHS training program in environmental health sciences. Our renewal proposal incorporates and integrates several Schools, Centers, and Institutes, including the new Envirome Institute, the recently funded NIEHS P42 Superfund Research Program and the soon to be funded NIEHS P30 Core Center in Environmental Health Sciences. We propose a substantially improved predoctoral and postdoctoral training program that serves as an umbrella for interdisciplinary and integrated approaches to environmental health sciences. The training program will support six predoctoral and three postdoctoral trainees. Initial student recruitment and funding for predoctoral trainees is provided by the University of Louisville Integrated Programs in the Biomedical Sciences recruitment gateway. As in the previous cycle, predoctoral trainees will not be recruited directly into the environmental health sciences training program. All faculty mentors are asked to nominate trainees who have completed an approved dissertation proposal with a defined focus in environmental health sciences research. Faculty mentors will be asked to nominate either existing postdoctoral fellows or from trainees to be recruited. Teams of mentors (basic and clinical scientists or basic and population-based scientists) will be particularly encouraged to emphasize the importance of multidisciplinary training and translation of basic science findings to the patient and/or community. Our training program facilitates multidisciplinary approaches for effective intervention and interfaces exceptionally well with the NIH Roadmap as well as with the strategic plans of NIEHS and the University of Louisville.