The purpose of this five year program is to provide high quality training to qualified scientists from Bangladesh so as to improve local capacity to carry out research in the area of childhood infectious diseases, with specific emphasis on maternal and neonatal infections, and to strengthen collaborative ties between the participating US and Bangladeshi institutions. The program proposes to provide long-term training of three pre-doctoral (two doctoral and one masters) and two post-doctoral students as well as shorter term (non-degree) training in specific methodologies appropriate for support of childhood infectious disease research. Short-term training will be led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health faculty, with support from collaborating faculty and conducted at the local collaborating institutions in Bangladesh. The training offered will be multi-disciplinary and include both biomedical and behavioral research, with strong research methodological underpinnings. The training will be integrally linked to the research studies currently being conducted by Johns Hopkins and local institution investigators in Bangladesh. These include population-based studies with well established field sites, hospital-based studies, and laboratory work in support of the field and hospital studies. These studies will provide the settings in which pre-doctoral students would conduct their thesis research under guidance from US and local investigators, and would also provide re-entry research opportunities for graduates of the program. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]