NIH has funded research training for more than 30 years

The College of Pharmacy recently received a grant from the National Institutes of Health that will fund the Research Training in Toxicology and Toxicogenomics program for an additional five years. With this award, the NIH has funded the program for more than 30 years.

The new toxicology training grant will increase the number of predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees.

“We requested and received additional training slots,” explains A. Jay Gandolfi, associate dean of research and graduate studies in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. “We now have nine predoctoral training slots (up from seven) and three postdoctoral slots (up from two). Getting an increase in the number of trainees in the current federal funding climate is a reflection of how much the government respects the graduates we produce.”

As the application that the NIH approved stated, “The toxicology training program at the University of Arizona has a long-standing reputation for producing many successful PhDs. Graduates are now key players in academia, industry, and government…. This request…is validated by the highly successful nature of their program, the clear demand for their graduates, the increasing number of students interested in toxicology, institutional commitment, strong and well-funded research programs of the faculty, and the excellence of the training environment.”

The COP’s toxicology training program is one component of the Center for Toxicology, which includes the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (a center for environmental toxicology research) and the University of Arizona Superfund Research Program, a collaborative research program to address hazardous waste problems in the Southwest.