Scripps Research Translational Chemical Biology

Project Summary/Abstract Scripps Research is a leader in the field of chemical biology. This leadership is established on three core strengths: the high quality of its faculty, its top ranked graduate program, and the excellent interdisciplinary nature of our research programs. Scripps Research exemplifies itself as a research institution where ideas in the basic sciences can be seamlessly translated to drug candidates and clinical trials. Likewise, our institution also boasts the ability to take observations from the clinic and extract meaningful molecular information from them to innovate on basic principles. Our program is not bounded by departments, and interdisciplinary work is found in commonplace at Scripps. The overall mission of our graduate program is to coordinate our established pre-doctoral training program with the translational drug discovery mission and activities across the Institute. With this Chemical Biology Training grant, our objective is to train a cadre of elite Scripps Research students with emphasized and specialized training in translational chemical biology. Under this newly coordinated program, students will be equipped with advanced chemical biology and translational drug discovery skills that prime them for successful transition to competitive spots within the biomedical research workforce. These skills will be developed via our chemical biology didactic curriculum that will be infused with advanced courses in drug discovery and pharmacology, seminars and trainee presentations, a chemical biology-specific alumni matching program, an internship program that exposes trainees to local companies that have been highly successful at translating chemical biology technologies, and a transformative set of career development activities that are design to teach collaboration as a skill. This training is designed as a two-year program that commences following the first year of laboratory rotations and the selection of a graduate advisor who is a member of our molecular-focused 41 Participating Faculty. A projected number of ten trainee slots will be supported via this program.