REU Site: Research Experience in Molecular Biotechnology and Genomics

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One of the best ways to keep undergraduate students excited about science is to involve them in actual laboratory research. The opportunity to become a working member of an active research group provides the impetus for many students to continue into graduate school in science. The NSF REU program at Iowa State University focuses on providing an intensive research experience with an active research group at Iowa State. The research groups work on biotechnology and genomics of plants and animals. Understanding that these types of research opportunities are available for undergraduate students at large research universities, this program focuses its efforts on students that do not have the same research opportunity at their home colleges. Specifically these are schools that serve minority institutions (particularly the 1890 Land Grant Schools) and small liberal arts colleges in the Midwest. Outstanding students that have finished their sophomore or junior years will spend ten weeks on the Iowa State University campus where room and board and a stipend are supplied. The students will join university research teams that are working in laboratories on problems in biotechnology and genomics. The students also meet together weekly for lunch and discussions on ethics, diversity, applying to graduate schools, written and oral scientific presentations, and frontiers of biological research. The students practice writing for general and scientific audiences, publish their research on the program web page, and present their work at a mini-symposium for the other students, mentors, and colleagues.