The goal of this program is to establish training programs that partner researchers working in schools of medicine and schools (or academic divisions) of public health. With those required institutional partners in place, programs have the freedom to involve a diverse range of other potential partners including those working in international settings, industrial settings, national laboratories, laboratories of federal agencies, quantitative population research groups outside of the life sciences (examples include but are not limited to econometrics, demographics, applied mathematics, anthropology, and other fields not typically represented by departments within medical centers.)
The programs supported by these awards will develop young researchers who will be equally at home with the ideas, approaches, and insights generated at the molecular scale and at the population scale. Such programs may be free-standing graduate programs or newly defined tracks within existing programs. Trainees of such programs may bring new approaches to combining genomics with phenomics, addressing questions of population genetics, understanding molecular and environmental epidemiology, and a range of other issues important to understanding human health and its disruptors.
Eligibility requirements are as follows:
- Only degree-granting institutions in the U.S. or Canada may submit applications.
- Proposals must be driven by core components within medical and public health schools, but beyond those required components, departments or centers located within non-medical parts of a university, existing inter-institutional collaboratives, research museums, free-standing research institutes, and other non-profit institutions that provide advanced-level training are all acceptable as potential additional partners. Dental, osteopathic, and veterinary medical schools are appropriate applicants.
- Comparative medicine and animal science departments are advised to discuss their planned proposal with the program officer to ensure that their proposal will be human-focused enough to be competitive.
- Proposals that cross institutional boundaries are encouraged.
- Research groups working at national laboratories and within the federal government are allowable as partners, but funding to students doing research within these institutions must be channeled through an appropriate degree-granting institution.
- For-profit companies may not participate in the application, but could be valuable partners in such training programs. Proposals that may offer students access to research opportunities involving work in or data from the for-profit sector are welcome.
The FAQs answer specific eligibility questions on which groups may or may not apply.