Carver College of Medicine Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program (CNS-TP)

PROJECT SUMMARY Brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, glioma, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, stroke and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis devastate the lives of millions of patients and their families. Despite decades of research costing billions of dollars, these and other brain diseases still lack accurate diagnostic tools, effective disease- modifying therapies, adequate symptomatic managements, or even well-defined mechanistic causes. These failures stand out particularly in light of incredible advances in basic scientific knowledge. Thus, there is a critical need for clinicians to be involved in basic research on human brain disease since they are well suited to identify new approaches. The University of Iowa Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program (CNS-TP) is designed as an efficient pathway to train outstanding neurology, neurosurgery and neuropathology residents in basic research, with the goal of increasing the percentage of trainees who continue in a long career as productive clinician-scientists.