The college is a recipient of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Training Grant (T32), which provides funding opportunities for selected individuals training for careers in clinical research. The purpose of the NRSA program is to help ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available to assume leadership roles related to the Nation's biomedical and behavioral research agenda. A full description of the program is available at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-00-103.html

The Training Program will provide two to three years of support for successful applicants in the PhD program. It will enable selected outstanding students in the program to spend full time in pursuit of an enriched research training experience. The trainees' educational experience will be broadened by inclusion of required coursework in epidemiology, biostatistics, and the basic sciences through The Ohio State College of Medicine and Public Health to enable our graduates to engage in patient-based and/or translational research in the future.

Trainee Selection:

According to the rules of the Graduate Program, all eligible applicants wishing to pursue the PhD must apply to the Graduate Studies Committee for admission to the PhD Program. The application requires a “statement of purpose” to detail the applicant’s reasons for pursuing graduate training, outline his/her career goals, and interest in patient-based research. Two letters of recommendation would be required, which would be written by professors selected by the candidate. The letters should evaluate the student’s research and academic qualifications and performance. The application also requires transcripts of the student’s academic record, as well as official copies of the student’s scores on the Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytic subtests of the GRE.

Summary:

The Vision Science program at The Ohio State University has a strong portfolio of active NIH funded patient-based research and is located within an environment that is unique in having all the health science disciplines (including Public Health). In addition, basic science programs in Molecular Biology, Genetics, Psychology, Biophysics, Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Physics, Zoology and others are offered at the graduate level. The Training Program will take advantage of this broad range of research expertise and academic coursework. Students will be required to undertake coursework in basic sciences outside of Vision Science and encouraged to collaborate with mentors in other disciplines and seek out expertise in areas not covered by the program faculty.

The goal of the Training Program is to train clinician-scientists in patient-based research that will be strong competitors in obtaining extramural funding for independent research to advance knowledge of the eye and eye disease. The Training Program’s emphasis on patient-based research will make graduate training attractive to many optometrists who wish to take maximum advantage of their clinical background when selecting a PhD training program.