Project Summary/Abstract The UC Berkeley/UCSF joint Training Program in Metabolic Biology (TPMB) offers unique opportunities for trainees to gain a strong foundation in rigorous, reproducible science, and to acquire the professional skills and knowledge to support future leaders in the field of human metabolic health and disease research. Built around an inter-departmental, trans-institutional training program, it brings together world-leading researchers and mentors from UCB's Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology (NST) and UCSF's Diabetes Center (DC) to offer an unparalleled training experience for predoctoral fellows. TPMB seeks to attract a diverse group of highly qualified students from various academic backgrounds including biochemistry, cell and molecular biology, nutrition, and physiology. Our curriculum is build around development of scholarship and skills in research, teaching and professional service with the goals of establishing early research independence and laying a foundation for research integrity and responsibility. In addition to taking TPMB specific courses that emphasize human health and disease topics in metabolic regulation, research design and reproducibility, data analysis and interpretation, as well as ethical conduct, students will be able to rotate through laboratories both on the UCB and UCSF Parnassus campuses in their first year. TPMB students will experience a nurturing, diverse, and exciting environment that has build a well-established and integrated community of program leadership, researchers and preceptors across the two campuses and is well aware of the opportunities and potential challenges this approach offers. In order to make informed choices for their rotations incoming students will be exposed to the variety of metabolism centered research in the program through introductory lectures given by all TPMB faculty and participate in the programs joint annual retreat offering talks, posters, and social interactions with faculty, students, and postdocs. A central strength of TPMB is the quality of our faculty and the breath of human health and metabolism focused research topics ranging from central regulation of feeding behavior to adipocyte biology and ß-cells and state-of-the-art technical approaches from single-cell-sequencing, to metabolomics, genetics, stem cell biology, and bioengineering and the ability to pursue research in both clinical and preclinical settings. This wide range of expertise and approaches foster collaborative science and prepare TPMB students to successfully transition into independent careers in academia, industry, and government to tackle problems central to the mission of NIDDK and to improve human health and wellbeing.

Project Narrative Dysregulated metabolism and obesity-associated diseases, particularly diabetes, have reached epidemic proportions world-wide. There is growing need to train scientists who meld the entire “tool chest” of biological techniques to study the regulation of metabolism as it relates to human disease risk on the on all levels ranging from humans, to animal models, and cellular and molecular mechanisms. This inter-departmental, trans- institutional training program in Metabolic Biology unites faculty at the University of California-Berkeley in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology (UCB-NST) and the University of California-San Francisco Diabetes Center (UCSF-DC) to train scientists capable to generate insight into mechanisms of disease and disease risk related to intermediary metabolism and metabolic regulation.