The Glycoscience Training Program (GTP) aims to teach fundamental skills and instill a wide-ranging scientific curiosity to foster the next generation of Glycoscientists. Glycans are one of the four macromolecules of life, impacting all biomedical sciences; therefore, their study requires a skillset that allows trainees to approach broad scale problems in a collaborative manner and that will be increasingly in demand in existing and emerging career paths. Glycoscience represents a highly interdisciplinary area of research. The GTP, through its faculty and the state-of-the-art resources available to trainees, aims to train students who will bring Glycoscience principles to bear on all biomedical disciplines. GTP students obtain in-depth transferable training in the primary discipline of their mentor (e.g. Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Chemistry, Infectious Diseases, Microbiology, Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences) complemented by glycoscience knowledge and techniques that address how glycans impact all those research areas – essentially allowing trainees to become Glycoscience advocates through their ability to communicate and collaborate across disciplines. The GTP is designed to train predoctoral students in rigorous and quantitative experimental design, develop excellent communication skills, and identify a career path—all in the context of a safe and supportive environment—leading to a fulfilling career in the biomedical sciences.
Objectives of the program:
The broad goals of the GTP are to train pre-doctoral students in the specific area of Glycoscience and provide them with the skills necessary to be a successful member of the U.S. biomedical workforce. The specific objectives are as follows:
- Objective 1: To provide GTP trainees with a broad knowledge of Glycoscience, and the ability to carry that knowledge into the biomedical workforce. As mentioned above, knowledge of the impact of Glycoscience in the biomedical community is largely lacking, leaving a significant area of biology out of consideration in human health. All of our GTP trainees will participate in coursework, journal clubs, seminars and their own research, providing a foundation for understanding the importance of Glycoscience regardless of the particular biomedical field they pursue in the future.
- Objective 2: To develop GTP trainees with a strong foundation in scientific reasoning, rigorous research design, quantitative skills, and data analysis that lead to experimental reproducibility and transparency. Our students will gain a core understanding of how to design experiments with rigor, perform research in a safe and ethically responsible manner, learn a wide variety of methodologies, and analyze their data using appropriate quantitative and statistical methods. These skills will be developed through required coursework and detailed instruction relevant to their specific field by their doctoral mentors, as well as their peers. Students will demonstrate their ability to apply these skills to their research through qualifying exams, presentations, publications, and thesis defense.
- Objective 3: To develop strong written and oral communication skills in our GTP trainees. Our students will have multiple opportunities to present their work in written and oral formats through coursework and throughout their training. Students will build writing skills through grant writing courses, qualifying exams, grant proposals, and research publications under the guidance of their doctoral mentor. Oral presentation skills will be gained through journal clubs, research presentations in laboratory meetings, required departmental presentations, the GTP annual retreat, and at regional and national conferences.
- Objective 4: To assist trainees in pursuing professional development opportunities and identifying a career path. Our students will be exposed to a variety of career opportunities so that they can identify a path suited to their skills in the biomedical workforce. We require all of our students to generate Individual Development Plans (IDPs), and we provide information regarding internship and professional development opportunities, career preparation workshops, and career planning services.
- Objective 5: To provide trainees with the mentoring and support needed for productive research and timely graduation while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We are dedicated to providing a program where students publish their research and graduate in a timely fashion. In this renewal, our goal is to reach an average time-to-graduation of 5 years, down from the current 5.6 year average for GTP trainees. To achieve this goal, we will more closely monitor GTP trainees’ progress through Annual Reports and require mentor training for our GTP faculty to help students succeed while promoting a healthy work-life balance.
- Objective 6: To expose GTP trainees to cutting-edge technologies and novel experimental strategies in the Glycosciences and related fields. The high-end instrumentation found within the laboratories of the GTP trainers and amongst the shared resources of the CCRC and participating departments at UGA provide unique opportunities for GTP trainees to acquire familiarity, and even expertise, in glycoscience analytics and experimental techniques. Cutting-edge NMR platforms and high-resolution MS can be leveraged by trainees to generate and appreciate the value of multi-omic datasets. These datasets also provide starting materials for the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) computational approaches that can drive hypothesis generation. The power of the available instrumentation and the new uses of the large datasets that can be generated will be accessible to trainees through tutorials, experiential workshops, seminars, and hands-on learning opportunities.