UPR-MHIRT in Infectious Disease and Molecular Biology

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application is in response to RFA-MD-04-004 from the National Center on Minority Health and Health disparities (NCMHD) and the Fogarty International Center (FIC) of the NIH for a University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) Program in Infectious Diseases and Molecular Biology. This competing renewal application program will include 10 research trainees, 75 % of which will be undergraduates, with the rest being doctoral and/or medical students or resident fellows. The UPR is the premier institution of higher learning for minority Hispanic students in the United States, and is first in the nation in graduating Hispanic Ph.Ds. The theme is around the broad area of international health problems focusing on molecular and immunological aspects of tropical medicine and parasitology, which are health problems that affect the populations of developing countries and of health disparities populations. This includes diseases of the poor and the disadvantaged as is human fascioliasis, which is a newly emerging disease, malaria, and HIV. Moreover, important structure-function studies of novel hemoglobins, melanosome biogenesis in human Hermansky Pudlak Syndrome, and regenerative processes in echinoderms as models for vertebrates, round out a broad range of research activities in molecular and developmental biology. The European and Canadian performance sites are of those currently or prospectively collaborating with faculty at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences, Rio Piedras, and Mayaguez campuses which are the three doctoral/research campuses of the UPR system. These foreign sites include laboratories in Salamanca, Valencia, & Granada in Spain; INSERM in Paris, France; Edinburgh in the UK; Montreal, Canada; and Sydney, Australia. Training periods of 10-12 weeks or a semester with these outstanding investigators are contemplated.