Training Cross-Disciplinary Researchers in Diabetes

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal describes a new initiative to educate graduate students in Biosciences, BioInformatics, and BioEngineering about Diabetes. The specific objectives of the program are: 1. To extend, improve and teach a recently developed, novel diabetes curriculum. This curriculum is designed to introduce graduate students in various disciplines, including engineering, informatics, and biosciences, to diabetes mellitus. The central learning objective is to teach skills that ultimately facilitate the application of the students' primary discipline to unsolved problems in diabetes. 2. To develop a mechanism for interdisciplinary student teams to pursue diabetes-related inventions to the prototype stage. 3. To develop electronic courseware to serve as a framework for this diabetes curriculum at Stanford University. Web-based materials will support administrative functions, such as course organization and communication about assignments. Importantly, the electronic materials will also provide supplementary educational opportunities for students, including review of the in-class sessions, links to relevant resources, self-assessment tools, and an on-line discussion forum. 4. To modify and extend the electronic courseware such that it may serve as a framework for development of similar courses at other institutions. A number of features will be added to the courseware for use at sites outside of Stanford. Chief among them will be an electronic instructor's manual, and directions for video capture and incorporation in real-time of lectures at other schools. 5. To develop, validate, and refine evaluation tools to be used in association with the diabetes curriculum. Achievement of this aim will allow on-going assessment of the efficacy of each of the components of the curriculum, both in terms of student performance and in terms of course performance. In addition, we will develop approaches for longer-view analysis of the extent to which the course is meeting its objectives. These tools, and instructions for customizing them for use at other schools, will also be included in the electronic courseware. The long term goal of this proposal is to recruit individuals with diverse backgrounds into translational research with relevance to diabetes or related conditions. Achievement of this goal has the potential to contribute to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for diabetes and related conditions.