The Department of Pathology’s Selvarangan Ponnazhagan, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular and Cellular Pathology, has been named Co-Director of P³, a graduate program theme known as Pathobiology, Pharmacology, and Physiology. This is one of the eight themes of the UAB Graduate Biomedical Sciences (GBS) Doctoral Training Program. Ponnazhagan will serve alongside Robert C. van Waardenburg, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. 

The GBS is a common portal for PhD students in the UAB School of Medicine, designed to provide rigorous, interdisciplinary education and mentorship in a wide array of scientific disciplines. GBS trainees can perform doctoral research in more than 350 different labs across campus as well as at Southern Research and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. The goal of the GBS program is to provide all participating students with the resources they need to cultivate excellence in their careers, irrespective of individual goals or aspirations. This is accomplished by taking advantage of the UAB community’s exceptional research capacity, the commitment of faculty to excellence in mentorship, and modern, flexible methods for educating young professionals in advanced scientific topics.

The P³ theme in particular, provides graduate students the broadest training within the emerging and exciting field of molecular medicine. The educational program is flexible, didactic, integrated, and directed by faculty with diverse research interests ranging from molecules to whole organisms and disease processes to new therapies. The P³ theme consists of over 120 faculty from various departments of UAB and approximately 35 students in different stages of their doctoral studies.