BRITE Veterinary Student Program

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Basic Research Immersion Training Experience (BRITE) veterinary student program is designed as an intensive research oriented experience directed towards attracting talented professional students into biomedical research careers. To this end, the program exposes select students to hypothesis-driven research activities, methodologies involved in design and execution of laboratory experiments and ethical issues pertinent to biomedical research, at a formative stage of their veterinary education. Most important, the BRITE program provides veterinary students interested in a research career with a flexible, accelerated, integrated and subsidized training opportunity. BRITE veterinary students are given a unique opportunity to utilize the rigorous didactic basic science training obtained during the first two years of the professional curriculum in pursuit of a research problem relevant to human and animal health. BRITE students are expected to devote an entire academic year to research relevant to comparative medicine or public health; optimally, this occurs between the second and third year of the professional (DVM) curriculum. The in-depth mentored biomedical research experience may be used to earn an MS in Veterinary Biomedical Sciences, to complete the thesis research component and course requirements associated the DVM/MPH program, or to "jump-start" a combined DVM/PhD program. The BRITE program faculty is comprised of established, productive senior investigators and well-trained, motivated mid-career and junior faculty, with active laboratories, a strong history of collaboration, and wide-ranging technical expertise. The pool of potential mentors includes individuals with primary academic appointments in seven departments/units at Kansas State University (Anatomy & Physiology, Biochemistry, Biology, Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology, Entomology, Human Nutrition, and Veterinary Clinical Sciences). The BRITE program faculty have overlapping strength in four areas of research excellence: neuroscience; immunology & host-pathogen-environment interactions; epithelial function in health and disease; genomics & ecology of insects affecting human and animal health. Thus, BRITE scholars will be able to investigate problems relevant to comparative medicine and human health at the molecular, cellular, organismal and systems levels. BRITE graduates are expected to pursue career paths that address the pressing national need for veterinarians in biomedical research.