Interdisciplinary Training in Alcohol Research

ABSTRACT/SUMMARY The aim of this training program is to provide graduate students with the research skills to identify alcohol-related risk factors by investigating their expression in response to acute and chronic exposure to alcohol at the cellular level, behaving laboratory animal, and the human subject. The training program will emphasize training in cellular and behavioral pharmacology of alcohol with the broad objective to understand how such acute and chronic reactions combine or interact with personal and environmental factors to confer risk for alcohol use disorders. The training is designed to achieve three objectives: 1) deliver intensive training in alcohol research; 2) foster interdisciplinary and translational perspectives on alcohol research; and 3) develop professional skills to support career development in alcohol research fields. The proposal requests support for five pre-doctoral appointments. The appointments will be for a two-year period. Training will be primarily delivered within the research programs of the faculty and the core facilities at UK. This includes a training faculty team of 20 researchers drawn from six academic and research units of the University of Kentucky. The rich environment provides opportunities for translational and multidisciplinary bio-behavioral research training in facilities such as the: 1) Center on Drug and Alcohol Research; 2) Center for Clinical and Translational Science; and 3) The Substance-abuse Prevention in Emerging Adults Research Center (SPEAR). The alcohol-specific expertise and broad research foci of our faculty, coupled with their interdisciplinary research provides a solid foundation by which implementation of the proposed T32 training program will bolster the research skills of our students for the ultimate goal of producing bright, productive scientists capable of significant developments and discovery in the etiology, prevention, and treatment of alcohol use disorders.