This application represents a renewal for multi-disciplinary predoctoral training program in the Pharmacological Sciences at the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. The Program is broad based and provides training in the area of molecular pharmacology, signaling, pharmacology of the nervous system, protein structure of receptors, and elements of environmental medicine/toxicology. To achieve this aim, the Program has included 27 outstanding Program faculty from both basic science and clinical departments at the medical school, whose research interests lie in the field of Pharmacology. The training faculty have many overlapping research interests, which ensures that predoctoral trainees are part of a strong intellectual environment larger that the individual laboratories. The Program faculty are located in the Departments of Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Environmental Medicine/Toxicology, Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Microbiology and Urology. The laboratories draw students who directly apply an open graduate program operated by the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at the NYU School of Medicine. The entire faculty has attracted highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows. The Program faculty members all belong to the Sackler Institute. Trainees will participate in a number of core and advanced courses (e.g. Principles of Pharmacology, Molecular Pharmacology of Receptors, Molecular Pharmacology and Drug Development), a Frontiers in Pharmacology seminar series, a bi-weekly work-in- progress sessions where students present their research to students and faculty, and tutorials intended to ensure broad exposure to molecular pharmacology and the pharmacological sciences. Collaborations between trainees and participating faculty will be encouraged starting with initial laboratory rotations and continuing with mentoring of dissertation studies by individual faculty members. The goal of the program is to provide a strong, broad based training of predoctoral students who will develop into productive, competitive and creative scientists capable of making important contributions to the field of Pharmacology and its application to human disease.

This Training Grant in the Pharmacological Sciences will rigorously train students to become outstanding investigators in this area. As such they will be among the future leaders in Pharmacology who will play an important role in deciphering pathways which could lead to novel drug design which will impact and target human diseases.