MOLECULAR GENETIC BASIS OF HUMAN DISEASE

DESCRIPTION This training program is designed to prepare postdoctoral fellows for medical genetic research as a primary or adjunct career path. The goal of the program will be to train individuals at the postdoctoral level in the current investigative techniques of medical genetics in a mature and broad program. The program will emphasize research training for physicians in active laboratories, but will also be open to Ph.D. candidates with a strong commitment to medical genetics. The program is based in the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics at Oregon Health Sciences University. It has 30 faculty from the departments of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Pediatrics, Medicine, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Cell and Developmental Biology, and Pathology as well as the Shriners Hospital, the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research and the Biomedical Information and Communication Center. The faculty provides a broad and comprehensive opportunity for training in research at the molecular and translational levels. The program offers training and experience in the clinical and diagnostic laboratory areas of medical genetics. Research areas of the faculty include gene mapping and isolation, gene expression and regulation, development of animal models of human diseases, molecular pathophysiology in inherited diseases and developmental defects. The program offers training and research in the three diagnostic laboratory areas of medical genetics: cytogenetics, biochemical genetics and molecular diagnostics. Emphasis will be on research, but in addition trainees will attend the clinical rounds of the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics and take part in a basic science journal club in the Department. They will receive instruction m research ethics and a primary course in medical genetics offered by the Department. The variety of research programs and the maturity of the clinical activities of the Department will allow the program to meet its goals.