Training Program in Molecular and Translational Visual Sciences - Program Summary (Abstract) This proposal seeks to fund a new training program in Molecular and Translational Visual Sciences (MTVS) at Upstate Medical University (UMU). The goal of the program is to train young research scientists in understanding and investigating important questions related to the biology and pathobiology of the visual system. The foci for the MTVS will be: 1) molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal retinal and ocular tissues; 2) molecular basis of the pathology of the visual system; 3) strategies for retinal and ocular tissue repair and regeneration. Trainees will be 3 pre-doctoral single degree (PhD) students and 1 dual-degree (MD/PhD) student. The current enrollment in our CVR labs, is 20 predoctoral students; the funding request represents support for 20% of current enrollment. Trainees will be drawn from 3 doctoral programs in the College of Graduate Studies (CoGS): Neuroscience; Cell & Developmental Biology; and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. The sixteen (16) faculty of the Center for Vision Research will serve as preceptors (mentors) for the program. Those faculty are funded by NEI, RPB, BrightFocus and the VA with approximately $6 million in annual, extramural support. Our inclusion criteria for mentors/preceptors will be faculty actively funded, or seeking funding, for vision-related projects. Members of the CVR faculty have key positions in the Neuroscience program (including chair of department and director of the program). However, to provide our trainees with the broadest breadth of expertise, we have invited key leaders from the programs in Cell & Developmental Biology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology to serve as co-mentors (see Table I). Thus, our trainees will have unsurpassed mentorship in vision sciences and the underlying scientific disciplines. MTVS trainees will be cross-trained in the important and pressing issues in both basic and translational science. While our training program is based in a clinical department (Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences), the research faculty have an outstanding basic (discovery) science focus. Thus, the program integrates discovery science with fundamental questions of clinical relevance. The curriculum and training experience involves both didactic and problem- based training experiences. Basic (discovery) science faculty will ground trainees in the rigors of modern science, whereas the clinical faculty will root trainees in translational needs and goals. Preceptors with projects that are translationally relevant will bridge the gap between the discovery and clinical science. As the CVR is a proven training environment that combines the strengths of the component CoGS programs, it is recognized by predoctoral students as the most intellectually stimulating training site on the campus. The six (6) new students, joining the CVR from the current first year class of 31 candidates, is witness to that excitement. Thus, this program is assured to be successful.
