A secondary aim of the Northwest Genome Engineering Consortium is to promote the development of genome engineering as a scientific discipline. To assist in meeting this goal, the NGEC is sponsoring two opportunities: an Interdisciplinary Training in Genome Engineering postdoctoral fellowship program and an annual Workshop on Genome Engineering.
Because of the highly interdisciplinary nature of genome engineering, individuals interested in pursuing careers using genome engineering methods, concepts, and tools require training that spans two, and perhaps more, of the disciplines represented within the NGEC. Analogously, continuity of the proposed work and synergy within the NGEC would be facilitated by the involvement of individuals who have training in more than one of the disciplines represented within the NGEC. Therefore, the NGEC is sponsoring the Interdisciplinary Training in Genome Engineering program to support postdoctoral fellows who undertake interdisciplinary projects in genome engineering-related fields.
Selected individuals will carry out projects spanning two or more disciplines with co-mentoring by two principal investigators with complementary expertise. Projects are not required to utilize homing endonucleases or further NGEC research goals. Fellows will be chosen on the basis of the interdisciplinary nature of their project, its relationship to genome engineering, the degree of scientific innovation, potential impact, and likelihood of a productive outcome of the project, as well as the quality and appropriateness of the training experience for career development of the trainee. The period of training will be up to two years, and training will involve active research and associated laboratory meetings, NGEC group meetings, presentation of their data at the annual Workshop for Genome Engineering, and travel to an outside meeting each year.
Andrew M. Scharenberg, MD
Options are also provided for additional interdisciplinary experiences, including didactic coursework, a biotechnology externship, the many interdisciplinary symposia and workshops which take place among NGEC institutions, and graduate level teaching. The program will include both NRSA and non-NRSA positions.
We currently have one open NRSA position on the training grant and will be awarding it at the end of the year. The application deadline for this limited competition is November 14, 2008. Funding will begin in early 2009. A full competition for both types of position will be conducted in Spring 2009 for positions beginning in Summer 2009. Detailed application instructions can be found in the Application Instructions file below. Additional information will be posted as it becomes available, or may be obtained directly from Jennifer Eastberg, NGEC Project Coordinator.
The NGEC will support an annual one-day Workshop on Genome Engineering. The goals of this workshop will be threefold:
The workshops will feature talks by two prominent outside investigators working in the general field of genome engineering, by selected members of each NGEC lab, and by NGEC Interdisciplinary Training in Genome Engineering fellows, and will conclude with a poster session for presentation of work by other NGEC lab members. With support for ten conference travel scholarships, including both within the United States and a limited amount of international travel, it will bring new ideas into the NGEC from all over the United States and world. Similarly, it will help to disseminate the concepts, methods and tools developed by the NGEC to outside investigators.
The first Workshop on Genome Engineering will be held on Monday, Nov. 10, 2008. More information is posted on the Workshop page, or may be obtained directly from Jennifer Eastberg, NGEC project coordinator.