Post Doctoral Associate

NIH T32 Postdoctoral Training Program - Translational Research in Regenerative Medicine.

Regenerative medicine is commonly defined as creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace body parts whose function has been compromised by age, disease, trauma, or congenital defects. Advances in this field over the past decade have been linked to the increased interdisciplinary communication among materials scientists, cell biologists and clinicians. New tissue scaffolds increasingly include sophisticated biochemical cues. Many stem cell-based therapies require biomaterial-based scaffolds for optimal cell delivery. The merging of disciplines necessary for this type of research is the core of regenerative medicine, an approach that will have a revolutionary impact on our health care system.

T32 Bench to Business to Bedside (B3) is a program that challenges postdoctoral researchers to work across a dispersed scientific community. The program delivers unique research experiences built around special combinations of expertise, and draws its faculty from six institutions (Rutgers University, Princeton University, Tufts University, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Case Western Reserve University and University of Pennsylvania). Each faculty member is a leading researcher in his or her own field. Many of them are currently collaborating, and all are eager to co-mentor new trainees in individualized research projects at the frontiers of regenerative medicine. The NIH has been funding this groundbreaking, geographically distributed training program since 2003.

Current focus research tracks include 1. Neural Tissue Engineering; 2. Extracellular Matrix; and 3. Stem Cells

This two-year training program is open to Ph.D., M.D., D.D.S., D.M.D, D.O., D.V.M., O.D., D.P.M., Sc.D., and Eng.D. graduates who are US citizens or permanent residents.

Trainees will be selected on the basis of excellence in previous training and proven research capabilities, as evidenced through both publications and presentations. Faculty will also look for evidence of interest in collaborative, multi-disciplinary research; commitment to a rigorous training program; and high levels of communication and organizational skills. Trainees with clinical backgrounds are expected to devote full time effort to the proposed research training and to confine clinical duties to those that are part of the research training. These trainees may select a one-year research training period. Some residency programs may credit the research training time to the residency term.