Institutional Training in the Genomic Sciences

Abstract The Genomic Sciences Training Program (GSTP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is building an inclusive community of leading genomic scientists with strengths spanning across multiple disciplines. The training opportunities and environment we propose will enable our trainees to create and rigorously apply new tools derived from technological advances that are informed by cutting-edge statistical and computational approaches that functionalize diverse and large datasets. The new genomic approaches to biological and medical investigation demand scientists who are knowledgeable and skilled across several fields in effective ways that potentiate new insights or inventions. Accordingly, the emergence of new tools allowing for the creation and interpretation of large-scale experimental efforts is what GSTP has focused on by the didactical interweaving of investigative approaches drawn from multiple fields (biology, genetics, physical sciences, engineering, computer science, and statistics) that were individually contoured for complementing a trainee’s core disciplinary focus, yet built upon achievement and knowledge within the genomic sciences. Given the incredibly rich scientific and engineering breadth of the University of Wisconsin, GSTP has been able to recruit outstanding trainees who greatly advanced mass spectrometry, “omic”-integration, computation, genome engineering, and bio-devices, while exploring new applications leveraging these advantages for cutting-edge investigation into network genomics, proteomics, spatial genomics, metabolomics, and genome biology. These achievements and contributions have nucleated and grown a significant genomics community. This genomics community has become a gateway and central hub for groundbreaking collaborations reaching across departments, centers, schools and other training programs. We propose for the upcoming project period that we continue this focus, with continued emphasis on innovation/invention and fostering of clinical applications, which will advance translational genomics and “turn discoveries into health.” We request funding for 10 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral traineeships per year. In the next funding period, we will continue to recruit and train trainees who have recently completed their undergraduate or graduate degrees.