Grant: Collaborative Research and Training Experience

The overall objective of the program is to create a new, novel, superior and sustainable research training and mentoring environment to form the next generation of reproductive and developmental biologists. This will be achieved by providing multi-institutional, transdisciplinary training from fundamental molecular biology through applied and clinical research and research ethics. Training in reproductive toxicology is also foreseen to develop scientists that can address the problems caused by endocrine and reproductive disrupters and other xenobiotics of environmental and pharmaceutical origin. A further goal is to emphasize knowledge translation to develop industrial and government scientists that will be required to address Canada's needs for the 21st century.The program will be implemented by integration of the infrastructure resources of a new, Québec-wide program in reproductive biology known as the Réseau Québécois en Reproduction (RQR). It will exploit the technical core facilities established and supported by the RQR and the range of expertise for co-mentorship within the network to develop unique and novel training environments and mechanisms. The program is designed to leverage funding from several sources to maximize the training impact. To address the needs of future investigation, there will be integration of bioinformatics training with genomic, cellular and molecular biology. There will be a further focus on ethical conduct in science and the ethics of experimentation in reproductive biology. The program promotes knowledge translation and the formation of highly qualified personnel for Canada's end users of reproductive and developmental biology research, the private and government sectors. An important focus will be on providing the training to allow students and postdoctoral fellows to make the transition to technical, academic and industrial scientific posts upon completion of their programs.