NHLBI Research Opportunities for Minority Students

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Our program offers short-term research training to underrepresented minority undergraduate and medical school students to provide them with career opportunities in cardiovascular, pulmonary, hematologic, and sleep disorders research and to expose them to the excitement, challenges and rewards of a career in biomedical research. Our program provides mentored research training with outstanding investigators who direct research programs in these four areas to 20 talented students per year. Of these 20 students, 10 will be undergraduate students who spend 2-3 months during summers and 10 will be medical students who will spend 3 consecutive full-time months as part of our research and scholarship requirements for graduation. The undergraduates will be selected primarily from those in our Health Careers Enhancement Program for Medicine, a 6-week summer program designed to encourage students to pursue careers in medicine. Trainees are selected based on applications that are competitively reviewed for the quality of their research proposal, the strength of the advisor as a mentor and role model, and the potential for a positive research experience. Our faculty lead outstanding programs that encompass basic, translational, clinical, population based research in each of these four major areas, and each faculty advisor has an outstanding training record and a great interest in working with students. The primary objective of this training program is to increase the number of students from underrepresented minorities who pursue academic careers in medicine and science, particularly in cardiovascular, pulmonary, hematologic, and sleep disorders. This goal will be pursued by 1) helping underrepresented minority students become aware of the excitement, opportunities, and challenges of biomedical research through well structured, mentored, short-term research experiences that lay the foundation for future involvement in biomedical research; 2) providing mentoring and a productive exchange of ideas between students and faculty; and 3) providing examples of the scholarly environment that encourage students to pursue biomedical research and medical education. This program will also provide enrichment activities, including research forums, guest lectures, student presentations, special courses, and social activities. Our evaluation system allows us to continuously improve our training program, and our database tracks the careers of our trainees.