The NIH is funding UCLA’s innovative Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) Training Program for the next five years, bringing to campus $5.3 million to support PhD students in biomedical research.  

“This will greatly benefit graduate education (and faculty research programs) in our department and across campus,” said Professor Jorge Torres, Director of the CMB Training Program since 2018. 

This T32 training grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Institute of General Medical Services (NIGMS), the largest grant of this type on campus outside of the Medical School Training Program, will support 24 graduate student positions per year for five years (2022-2027).  

Since it was first established in 1975, the program has supported more than 560 students, most of whom are currently in full-time research and teaching positions.   

The CMB program enhances the opportunity for the development of the cellular, biochemical and molecular sciences at UCLA, providing research support and integrating coursework, seminar programs, and travel opportunities to scientific conferences.  

Two major aims of the training program are to enhance the diversity of the scientific workforce and to ensure the rigor, transparency, and reproducibility of biological and chemical knowledge.  

To learn more about the CMB Training Program visit the program’s website.  

This program supports students in not only the PhD programs of Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology (BMSB) and Chemistry, but also in the UCLA Graduate Program in Bioscience (GPS), particularly in the four home areas of the Molecular Biology Interdepartmental Program (MBIDP).

The CMB program was initiated by the late UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Professor Paul Boyer in 1974, and was subsequently directed by Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics Professor Fred Eiserling for its first 13 years. Eiserling then recruited biochemist Professor Steven Clarke to take over, and he led the CMB program for the next 30 years (1988-2018).  

Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.