University of Southern California

Training Grant in Genomic Analysis and Interpretation
Stanley P. Azen, Ph.D.
Department of Preventive Medicine
T32 ES013678

Two trends have dramatically altered the landscape of training in biomedical research. The first is increasing emphasis on multidisciplinary research, requiring investigators to have both depth in their own particular area of expertise, as well as the breadth of skills required to form new liaisons and collaborations with other scientists in diverse fields. The second is the increasing use of sophisticated statistical and computational data analyses, especially of genomic data. Mathematical and computational scientists must be thoroughly engaged in the biological issues of the problems they are working on if they are to be able to communicate with their colleagues and make important contributions.

The training program offers pre- and postdoctoral training in Environmental Genetics that spans the disciplines of genetic, molecular and environmental epidemiology, statistical genetics, bioinformatics and computational molecular biology. The program builds upon the historical strengths of the USC Department of Preventive Medicine in cancer and environmental epidemiology to focus on dissecting complex biological pathways involving gene-environment and gene-gene interactions, issues that are central to the NIEHS Environmental Genome Project. These programs, based at the Keck School of Medicine, are integrated with those in the Program in Molecular and Computational Biology located at the University Park Campus in order to provide training in modern genomics and bioinformatics techniques that are relevant to the NHGRI Human Genome Project and International Haplotype Mapping (HapMap) Project.

This training program provides multidisciplinary training at the interface between environmental health and genomics.

E-mail contact: sazen@usc.edu