These faculty have a rich history of predoctoral and postdoctoral training and have trained nearly 400 individuals in the past decade. Our program brings together 32 faculty trainers with established research experience in the above disciplines. Students receive VMD training at the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine, and PhD training within one of the Penn Biomedical Graduate Groups devoted to research in infectious disease-related research: (1) Microbiology, Virology, and Parasitology, 2) Immunology, or 3) Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The program is further supported by synergistic activities provided by the larger VMD-PhD and MD-PhD programs. This is coupled with infectious disease- related veterinary and graduate didactic education, rigorous biomedical PhD thesis research, and veterinary clinical training.

Our training program includes focused activies on infectious diseases including as a global heath course, a zoonotic and infectious disease discussion group, infectious disease-related seminars, annual infectious disease-related retreats, and externships at a government public health agency. This program is contained within the umbrella of our larger VMD-PhD program which has a 48 year track record of success.

Our program seeks to directly address this national need through our VMD-PhD training program in infectious disease-related research which has a strong history of generating scientists in academia, industry, and government. Five reports by the National Research Council of the National Academies point out that society?s need to protect against these threats is outgrowing the veterinary knowledge base. Over 60% of all infectious diseases of animals can also affect humans, and incidences of new, emerging zoonotic infectious diseases are increasing. There is an urgent need to increase the number of veterinarian-scientists with expertise in infectious disease research.

Vmd phd