The University of California, Davis (UCD) Center for Comparative Respiratory Biology and Disease Training in Comparative Lung Biology and Medicine Program is designed to provide opportunities for 6 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral trainees/year to become independent investigators in pulmonary research. The duration of training will depend on the individual trainee's prior experience and capabilities to transition to their own independent academic and/or research careers. Candidates will be selected with special efforts give to minority recruitment strategies. Predoctoral students will be selected from the pool of candidates applying to the Center's many postgraduate group programs and/or applying to individual training faculty members and with evidence of previous research training relevant to the Center's research activities and priorities. Strong emphasis will be given to broad scope lung research training activities, with emphasis on lung comparative biology and cellular and molecular mechanisms. Faculty preceptors will direct research training in five primary areas: 1) airway pathophysiology; 2) lung toxopharmacology and toxogenetics, including inhalation toxicology; 3) lung development and differentiation; 4) lung molecular and cellular biology, and 5) lung inflammation and immunology. The training program includes an organized core curriculum consisting of research training in: (a) scientific ethics and paper and grant writing strategies including statistics; (b) principals of lung pathobiology; (c) specialized lung imaging technologies; (d) basic principles of proteonomics and genomics; and (e) transgenic cell and mouse technologies. Research conferences include seminars and work-in-progress sessions to assess trainee progress. Throughout the training program, career planning is stressed so the Program can be individualized to best achieve each trainee's personal goals. The Program is designed to be an advantage of the existing strengths of UC Davis, including well established collaboration between lung researchers in the School of Medicine and the School of Veterinary Medicine, a National Primate Research Center on campus, a mouse biology program with Jackson Laboratory on campus, sophisticated facilities for inhalation toxicology, a very strong clinical program in pulmonary and critical care medicine, and an established track record of research training over a period of more than 25 years.