Bridges to the Baccalaureate Research Training Program at University of Alabama at Birmingham

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Biomedical research is expanding rapidly in the US; however, minorities continue to be underrepresented in this workforce, constituting ~29% of the US population, but receiving only ~7% of PhD degrees and only ~4% of NIH RO1 grants. Many minority students lack early engagement and opportunities to develop skills and content knowledge to complete BS programs. For over 10 years Jefferson State Community College (JSCC) and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have partnered to develop a dynamic program to bridge minority JSCC students into undergraduate and graduate biomedical and behavioral education and careers. Our current Bridges to Biomedical Careers grant (BBC) predicted that 75% of students would gain a BS in 5 years, 35% would enter biomedical graduate education and 35% would enter biomedical careers. Of the 95 students in BBC, 98% have completed or are currently completing a BS in biomedical/behavioral sciences in 5 years or less, 100% are minorities, and 75% are in (or applying for) biomedical and behavioral graduate programs. The remaining 25% are pursuing research careers with their BS. One of the greatest challenges for students in BBC has been their need to work during the school year to pay for their tuition, decreasing the time they could work on their research. The new NIGMS B2B program addresses this challenge by funding students to carry out research throughout the entire year, starting with a summer research internship in their rising sophomore year. Bridges-UAB takes advantage of this greater student funding to enhance student success even further. It will include a very rigorous recruitment of freshman students at JSCC, including a research workshop and intro to research course and develop other JSCC and UAB partnership biomedical courses. Bridges-UAB will promote closer interactions between JSCC and UAB in research and education and provide students at JSCC and UAB with educational opportunities, internships and mentoring that will immerse them into biomedical and behavioral research and prepare them for research careers. Bridges-UAB will provide scholarships to cover the sophomore and junior years, and UAB plans to cover most senior year costs, thus paving the way for the students to focus on learning and their cutting-edge research. Upper- level students will be encouraged to be peer mentors to newer students, and top Bridges-UAB students will return to present their research at JSCC in the workshop and other courses, encouraging the JSCC students to consider research careers. The Broader Impact will be to expand the diversity of the biomedical research workforce. The Intellectual Merit will be to identify methods that engage and prepare minority students for careers in biomedical research.