NIH Training Grant in Inter-Disciplinary Pharmacological Sciences

Since July of 2010, our graduate program has been honored to be the recipient of a predoctoral training grant in Pharmacological Sciences from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), within the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Our training grant is one of fewer than 35 such grants in the country.  The NIGMS pharmacological sciences training grant program specifically supports research training that applies basic research to translational medicine by combining computational and experimental methods and pharmacological concepts to develop therapeutic drugs and determine their mechanisms of action.

The grant funds four student trainees per year, but, more importantly, it allows us to try new approaches and activities to improve the program for all our students.  Since our students conduct their doctoral research with faculty trainers in many departments and at many locations, on campus and in hospitals, the innovations facilitated by the training grant benefit many people and programs beyond our own Therapeutic Sciences graduate program.  Among the types of activities that have been developed and/or improved with support of the training grant are our annual graduate program retreat, student-run data clubs, career panels, new courses, and many types of mentoring events and resources.