Biomedical workforce near-peer mentees support public education and participation in research

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PROJECT SUMMARY The 7th Annual USA Science and Engineering Festival (USASEF) in Washington D.C. is expecting to draw 350,000 people to the free, 2.5 day festival in April, 2020. The goal of the festival is to increase public interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) using interactive exhibits. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) previously hosted exhibit booths at the 2010, 2012, and 2018 USASEFs to enhance public understanding of biomedical research. These efforts were in collaboration with NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) grantees from Oregon and West Virginia, who brought a collaborative research exhibit specifically designed to translate NIH-funded research for the public to understand and enjoy. This proposal requests a 4-month administrative supplement to extend our previously developed collaboration that leverages our independent SEPA projects. Specifically, we propose to provide a lifestyle public education exhibit that explains how DNA influences our health behaviors through the expression of proteins that shape the ways our bodies function (e.g., ranging from taste perception to skin melanin that protects cells from sun damage). USASEF attendees will be able to anonymously participate in an interactive NIH-funded research study that informs them about their own health and the process of biomedical research while contributing their anonymous information to a national population database, enabling students and scientists to study relationships between health factors. A new feature of our exhibit will be showcasing NIGMS-funded biomedical research trainees across levels of schooling (i.e., high school, undergraduate, graduate), who will offer near-peer mentorship of each other during the research exhibit as well as when interacting with student attendees of the exhibit, who comprise the largest fraction of USASEF attendees. Ultimately, this collaborative exhibit aims to increase public awareness of NIH-funded biomedical research and its training opportunities in an interactive and engaging way.