DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC) Division of Child eurology proposal for a Neurological Sciences Academic Development Award (NSADA) is designed to facilitate and nurture career development for junior faculty Child Neurologists committed to independent research careers and to enable scientific training ofthe next generation of clinical neuroscientists. The Tri-lnstitutional Research Program comprising Weill Cornell Medical College, The Rockefeller University, and the Sloan-Kettering Institute ofthe Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center provides a unique environment for an NSADA Program. These three institutions recognize the national need for training biomedical investigators who: (A) have advanced understanding of biomedical neuroscience and a mastery of contemporary research skills, which will allow them to undertake fundamental studies to elucidate basic neurobiological processes pertaining to human developmental neurologic disease; and (B) are well grounded in human neurobiology, pathophysiology and clinical neurology, including child neurology. Our program will guide NSADA Scholars through a rigorous course of postgraduate study that offers flexibility regarding the individual focus of research, and unfettered access to experienced mentors in leading developmental neuroscience laboratories within the Tri-lnstitutional campus. The multi-Institutional makeup of the faculty ensures that there is broad expertise in all ofthe major research disciplines comprising developmental neuroscience in its broadest sense: neurochemistry and neurobiology; neuroanatomy and MR- based brain imaging, cell and developmental neurobiology; neuropharmacology; computational neurobiology and bioinformatics; neurogenetics and genomics; neuro-immunology; molecular neuroscience; pathology and mechanisms of disease; and neurophysiology and biophysics. While the framework of developmental neurology and medicine and the sciences ofthe infant's and child's brain in health and disease is vast, our program will emphasize the theme of having each trainee master skills in developmental neurobiology, which enable them to acquire and apply current methods in basic and clinical neurosciences to improve thir ability to diagnose and treat developmental brain disorders.

PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Our training program will allow the development of clinician researchers with the skills necessary to transfer advances in basic research to the understanding, prevention, and treatment of pediatric neurologic disorders and improve the public health.