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The Musculoskeletal
Training Program at the Indiana University School of Medicine is in
its 7th year. The goals of the program have been to: (1) expand and
integrate current musculoskeletal research and teaching programs in
the basic, clinical and engineering sciences; and (2) train students
for research careers as basic scientists, bioengineers or clinical investigators
pursuing the causes of, and solutions to, musculoskeletal disease. We
have met each of these goals. The recent award of two new cross-disciplinary
Program Project grants involving our Training Faculty ["Mechanotransduction
in Bone"(Burr, Turner, Duncan, Pavalko, Bidwell) and "Genetic Determinants
of Skeletal Fragility" (Econs, Peacock, Turner, Foroud] testifies to
the expansion and integration of musculoskeletal programs on the Indianapolis
campus. In addition, we have trained, or are in the process of training,
six postdoctoral fellows, of whom two were women, one Hispanic, and
two are clinical fellows (MD and DDS/PhD). The four fellows who have
completed their training all have found positions; three of the four
have obtained faculty positions either at Indiana University or at the
University of Tennesee.
In the past four years, development of
additional cross-disciplinary research programs related to orthopedic
research have allowed us to expand beyond the initial core provided
by the Biomechanics and Biomaterials Research Center. The current program
uses this development of fundamental research programs in musculoskeletal
research to train both pre-doctoral and postdoctoral students in five
areas significant to musculoskeletal research: Osteoporosis, Skeletal
Biomechanics, Molecular Biology/Genetics, Osteoarthritis, and Dental
and Orthopedic Implants.
Goals for the next five years are to (1)
expand the postdoctoral training to train four postdoctoral students
per year in the five areas of emphasis and (2) to partner with current
pre-doctoral (Biomedical Engineering) and combined degree programs (MD/PhD
and DDS/PhD) to expand this training program into pre-doctoral training
in areas related to orthopedic research and related areas of musculoskeletal
biology. We propose this expansion into predoctoral training because
of the development of new programs on the Indianapolis campus (eg Biomedical
Engineering) and current initiatives to further develop and expand the
combined degree (MD/PhD) program at the IU School of Medicine.
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