Oliver Hankinson, Director of the TSR&TP Toxic Mechanisms Lead Campus

The UCLA Molecular Toxicology program awarded a five-year training grant from the NIEHS to begin July 2008. One pre- and one post-doctoral position are funded for the first year, and positions will increase to four and two, respectively, in the fourth year. The NIEHS training grant begins just after TSR&TP funding for the lead campus expires and therefore provides continuity to the UCLA Molecular Toxicology Program.

The UC TSR&TP Lead Campus in Toxic Mechanisms, which was established in 2000, is a consortium of faculty from UCLA, UCR and Los Alamos National Laboratory. At nearly the same time that the Lead Campus grant was awarded, the University of California approved the establishment of the Molecular Toxicology Interdepartmental Program. The Lead Campus has been critical to the development of the UCLA Molecular Toxicology Program, and has enabled the development of a cadre of outstanding toxicological scientists necessary for obtaining the NIEHS training grant. Since its establishment, the Lead Campus has provided stipends for Molecular Toxicology graduate students (and also students in the UCR Environmental Toxicology program), and has supported the Molecular Toxicology seminar series and an annual Lead Campus retreat. The Lead Campus has also been a very effective recruitment tool for students and faculty. For example, the presence of our Lead Campus was one of the factors that convinced Professor Robert Schiestl to join the UCLA faculty from Harvard University.

The nine faculty of the NIEHS training grant focus their research on areas included in the NIEHS mission. Several of the faculty members investigate the role of air pollution particulates in the exacerbation of asthma. Others investigate the carcinogenic/mutagenic effects of these and other environmental pollutants. A new area for the program is the role of pesticides in the etiology of Parkinson's disease. The faculty on the training grant have their primary appointments in seven different departments in three different schools at UCLA. Five of the nine mentoring faculty are physician-scientists. These faculty members will provide an avenue for the recruitment of physicians to postdoctoral positions into the Molecular Toxicology program.

The NIEHS training grant will further stimulate and enhance interactions and collaborations among the participating faculty and their students and postdoctoral fellows, which were fostered by the UC TSR&TP Lead Campus grant. The training grant will help further consolidate, improve and expand the Molecular Toxicology program, and signal the "arrival" of toxicology as an important player in the biomedical sciences at UCLA.

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