Short-Term Internship Program for Undergraduates and Health Professional Students

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): University of Colorado Denver has a successful undergraduate (UG) student diversity research short-term internship program. Better known as GEMS (Graduate Experiences for Multicultural Students), it pairs UG students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds with lab mentors. Over the past 10 years, 101 UG students participated: 27 are still UG (85% will apply to professional schools); 74 have graduated, 49 are in some health professional school or have a health-professional degree for a success rate of 66%. The Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) launched the Colorado Clinical Translational Science Institute (CCTSI) to build infrastructure for educational resources/enhancement of translational research. The CCTSI will partner with the GEMS program. In this new R25 we request funds to continue (and replace) the 10 year-old NHLBI-funded T35 GEMS and provide experiences to 10 UG and 2 health professional students. We propose several aims: 1.expose students to research careers by immersion in laboratories with basic or physician scientists; 2. expose students to quantitative and analytical skills; 3. improve student comprehension of science by participation in brown bags covering several topics; 4. expose students to science topics through research seminars; 5. increase awareness of clinical/translational research by shadowing physician scientists at the clinic; 6. create a website in partnership with the CCTSI to track students. With this award, we will continue to stimulate students from diverse backgrounds to pursue health-related careers. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This internship program at the University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus, seeks to expose undergraduate and health professional students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to summer laboratory or clinical translational research experiences in order to increase their representation in research related to cardiovascular, pulmonary or hematologic areas. The goal is to create a workforce of health-related researchers who are as diverse as the community they serve. By exposing these students early in their careers, we hope to capture their interest and excite them about the possibilities of biomedical research. (End of Abstract)