The New Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Program - Enter the text here that is the new abstract information for your application. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text. The Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Program (HAMBP) is a research training program for molecular biophysics PhD students in the Houston-Galveston area. It builds on our program in place since 1989. Funding for 11 students is sought to allow continued excellence and innovation. The program is led by the Program Director, Co-Director and a steering committee with representatives from five graduate schools in the area,0(Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center/University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston, University of Houston, and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston). The program provides didactic and seminar courses, three annual research conferences with trainee presentations, monthly trainee meetings, career/professional development seminars and workshops, attendance at national meetings, and annual presentation and review of trainee research progress. All students are required to participate in training in the responsible conduct of research and workshops in rigor and reproducibility. Mentors include 41 faculty members at six institutions, affiliated with 17 different departments and 14 graduate programs. These faculty have exemplary training and research records, as well as strong research funding. They have trained 158 predocs and 229 postdocs over the past 10 years and currently have 112 predocs (56 TG-eligible) and 62 postdocs currently in their labs. Trainees join HAMBP after one year of study following selection of one of our faculty mentors as their major thesis advisor. Trainees are selected in a highly competitive process from students whose projects in mentors' laboratories provide training in molecular biophysics. Trainee selection has the goal of supporting the most promising students. Strengths include x-ray crystallography, macromolecular, cryo-electron microscopy, a wide range of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, single molecule methods, computational biophysics, membrane biophysics, protein folding, nucleic acid structure and ultrastructure, thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanistic enzymology. Supported students generally publish at least 3 papers from their thesis research, including many in high impact journals, and go on to successful, research-related careers in academia, industry, government agencies, and private organizations. Location in the Texas Medical Center and the collaborations among the participating institutions facilitate cutting-edge biophysical research relevant to human health. Our program provides quantitative and interdisciplinary skills and prepares our trainees to be leaders in highly productive careers related to research advancing biomedical science.
