Activities

Capstone course/journal club

The trainees will participate in a capstone course and journal club that builds into a team based capstone project. Trainees will meet for one hour per week each semester. The activity has been divided into 3 sections (bio-membranes and infectious disease, infectious disease and drug discovery, and finally aspects of drug discovery, delivery and development). The trainee-only experience will ensure all trainees learn aspects of membranes in infectious disease entry, replication, structure, assembly and exit as well as drug discovery (drug screening assays, hit-to-lead identification, target validation, biophysical and biochemical studies of drug/target interactions, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, routes of administration, toxicology studies, preclinical studies required to file an IND (investigational new drug), stages of clinical trial, and the NDA (new drug application process).

The journal club portion will use a team based learning approach for active feedback with guiding questions form the PIs. As the students mature through the understanding of basic concepts, the second semester of each year will have an open and active learning concept where the trainees are given an open ended problem in infectious disease and drug discovery, where they will have to work together to find a solution.

I3D Seminar Series

The seminar series will meet biweekly and each trainee will be given a slot to present (required each year). We also have funds to invite outside speakers (7-8 each year) and each year a trainee will have the opportunity to be an organizer for the invited speakers visit. Other slots will be filled with faculty preceptor talks and Purdue faculty that have important stories in drug discovery and infectious disease.

Fellowship Application Submission

Trainees are required to submit a NIH F31 proposal (or similar AHA, ACS, etc.) after they become a trainee. They have developed this in a grant writing course but will be assigned two preceptors in addition to their mentor to ensure the development of the proposal and their Individual Development Plan (IDP) to accommodate submission of the proposal within one year of being appointed a trainee. The Graduate School also sponsors a fellowship workshop for which attendance guarantees reading of the trainees' specific aims page by an expert grant writer.

Annual Symposium with IUSM

We have partnered with a T32 in infectious disease training at IUSM (see letter from Dr. Wools-Kaloustian), their Global Health Program and the IUSM biomedical community, which is only 1 hour by car. Here our students will gain exposure to more clinically related disease training with respect to the IUSM program's focus of infectious disease and drug resistance. Trainees will also be appointed to roles in organizing and planning the meeting with IUSM representatives. Students will also gain feedback from faculty and trainees at IUSM who often have a focus in clinical/translational work as well as global health perspectives.

Industry site visits

We are planning trips to drug discovery and development locations in industry to provide trainees direct feedback and mentoring from both Purdue Alumni and other drug discovery experts. Additionally, funds are budgeted in the I3D seminar series to invite outside industry speakers to come and provide direct feedback and mentoring to the trainees and Purdue. The goal is to provide more detailed stories and opportunities of the aspects of drug discovery as well as the challenges of targeting infectious disease issues.

Research and Pizza Nights

This is an opportunity for trainees to interact with one or two of the Drug Discovery in Infectious Disease (I3D) faculty, who will informally evaluate trainee progress, give them a friendly audience for research problems underway, and help build a stronger biophysics community. Research & Pizza Night will be held once a month, with current and former I3D trainees presenting a 20-30 minute summary of their research progress. Current trainees are required to attend as condition of their appointment, and past trainees are expected to attend through the end of their graduate career so they can serve as good resources and practice mentorship.