Nature of the Proposed Programme: The broad thematic programme Host Susceptibility and Disease Pathogenesis will be centred on the University of Birmingham (UoB) Medical School's Institute for Biomedical Research (IBR) and the UoB/University Hospital Birmingham (UHBFT) Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (WTCRF; http://www.crf.bham.ac.uk/). Students will join the Medical School's existing Graduate School; over 200-strong and comprising both basic scientists and medically qualified entrants. The underlying philosophy of our programme is to provide clinical trainees with access to basic and clinical research of international standard, supported by an infrastructure that encourages easy translation between the two disciplines and minimises the distinction between them. An intake of 5 trainees per year for 5 years is proposed, commencing in 2008, with each PhD taking 3 years to completion. This ambitious programme is made possible by the School's established strategic research partnerships that effectively co-ordinate basic, clinical and community research within UoB, regional partner NHS Trusts and beyond. These partnerships underpin successes in Translational and Experimental Medicine that continue to provide significant benefit to the health and wealth of the nation. Our on-going strategic development takes a holistic view of medical education from undergraduate, to postgraduate, to career progression and lifelong learning and is centred on the need for in depth understanding of basic bioscience across the medical profession; it is wholly consistent to the Wellcome Trust's primary mission to "foster and promote research with the aim of improving human (and animal) health".