Neuroscience Predoctoral Training at UNC-Chapel Hill

PROJECT SUMMARY
The Neuroscience Curriculum (NBIO) provides comprehensive and rigorous training in neuroscience research
to graduate students working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). No other graduate
program on campus fulfills this mission. We seek to renew the predoctoral training grant (T32NS007431) that
supports the stipends of NBIO students in their first and/or second year as well as training activities for
students as they advance in the NBIO program. The overall objective of the NBIO program is to train the next
generation of neuroscientists to conduct fundamental basic research on the nervous system. Trainees in the
program gain mechanistic knowledge of brain function across the lifespan and develop research skills that can
be used to develop new treatments for neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders. The training plan
includes required coursework in tools and technologies used in modern neuroscience research, molecular and
cellular neuroscience, neurodevelopment, sensory and motor systems, the neurobiology of disease, training in
experimental design, statistical methodology, and quantitative skills and literacy. In the prior funding period, we
developed a Neuroanalytics course that provides rigorous training on programming, statistical analyses, and
machine learning as applied to quantitative real-world neuroscience data. Additional training activities include a
weekly seminar series that facilitates networking with experts in the neuroscience field and serves as a weekly
community building activity for NBIO students and faculty. The plan also includes an annual neuroscience
symposium, the annual awarding of the internationally recognized Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, an annual
retreat organized by NBIO students, and various academic and non-academic career development
opportunities. The 75 participating NBIO faculty are highly collaborative and are world-leaders in key areas of
modern neuroscience, ranging from basic research to translational/clinical studies. We recruited >40% more
NBIO training faculty relative to the prior funding period, and these faculty have been extremely successful in
training NBIO students. We are thus requesting a modest 10% increase in the number of T32 supported
students (11 per year) as part of this renewal. This T32 leverages strong institutional support of NBIO for
program administration, training activities, and resources, some of which are used to enhance recruitment and
mentoring of underrepresented (UR) trainees (30% of current NBIO students are from UR groups, up from
20% in the prior funding period). The planned appointment duration is 1-2 years, and the intended trainee
outcomes include completion of a thesis that advances new neuroscience knowledge, one or more first-author
peer-reviewed publications, and career advancement opportunities post-graduation. Our training environment
has proven to be conducive to meeting these and other outcome measures. Over the past reporting period
there were 3.5 average publications per trainee, 88% of all trainees completed their doctoral training with one
or more first author publication, and 97% of all NBIO trainees remain in neuro/science-related careers.