Blazing to Biomedical Careers

描述（由申请人提供）：生物医学研究在美国迅速发展；然而，少数民族在这一劳动力队伍中的代表性仍然不足。虽然TIMSS和其他测试表明，与大多数其他国家的学生相比，美国学生在学术准备方面有了很大的提高，但少数民族学生并没有表现出这样的学术进步。最终的结果是，少数族裔和得不到充分教育的学生在进入生物医学和行为科学等高科技行业方面的准备仍然相对不足。结果是，占总人口29%的少数族裔，只占生物医学和行为科学博士学位的7%左右，只占R01生物医学和行为研究经费的4%左右。许多得不到充分教育的学生缺乏早期参与，即使他们对生物医学研究职业感兴趣，他们也缺乏机会发展技能和内容知识，从而进入4年的学士学位课程，从而进入生物医学或行为研究职业。英国广播公司（BBC）将联合两所社区学院和伯明翰阿拉巴马大学的力量，为即将进入社区学院的高中毕业生提供实习机会，让他们在进入社区学院之前了解生物医学和行为研究的机会和前景。第二次实习将在他们进入社区大学第二年之前的那个夏天进行。该项目还将在社区大学的两年时间里提供生物医学研究的高级课程，从而为学生在UAB的严格高级课程做好准备。学生将获得暑期研究和两个学年的研究学习机会的报酬。在UAB的第一年（大三），那些在生物医学学术课程中表现良好的学生将被招募为仍在社区学院学习前两年的BBC学生的导师。其他未被充分代表的大三和大四本科生以及一些研究生也将被招募到UAB的GENEius实验室担任高中生的辅导员，

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Biomedical research is expanding rapidly in the US; however, minorities continue to be underrepresented in this workforce. While the TIMSS and other tests show that US students are greatly improving their academic preparedness compared to students from most other nations, minority students have not shown such academic gains. The net result is that minority and underserved students remain relatively poorly prepared to enter high technology careers such as biomedical and behavioral sciences. The result is that minorities who constitute about 29% of the total population, represent only about 7% of PhD degrees in biomedical and behavioral science and hold only about 4% of R01 biomedical and behavioral research grants. Many underserved students lack early engagement, and even when they become interested in biomedical research careers, they lack the opportunities to develop skills and content knowledge to move into 4-year baccalaureate programs leading to biomedical or behavioral research careers. Blazing to Biomedical Careers (BBC) will join the forces of two community colleges and the University of Alabama at Birmingham to provide students graduating from high school who are headed to community colleges with internships that will introduce them to the opportunities and promises of biomedical and behavioral research careers before entering their community college. A second internship will occur the summer before their 2nd year at the community college. The program will also offer advanced coursework in biomedical research during their two years in community college, thus preparing the students for the rigors of advanced coursework at UAB. The students will be paid for their summer research and for research learning opportunities during the two school years. Once in their first year at UAB (juniors), those students who are performing well in their academic biomedical curriculum will be recruited to serve as mentors to BBC students still in their first two years at community college. Other underrepresented junior and senior undergraduates and some graduate students will be similarly recruited to serve as facilitators for high school students at UAB's GENEius lab, thus becoming role models for potential new BBC cohorts. Finally, the program will provide counseling and an educational program for BBC students who realize they are not destined for PI/PD status, but who want careers in the biomedical research field. The Broader impact of BBC will be to create a new cadre of underrepresented individuals in biomedical research. The Intellectual merit will be to test methods to engage and prepare underrepresented students for careers in biomedical and behavioral research. This will be especially important, in that the two community colleges are very different in their student population and thus the assessment will shed light on what methods work best for which populations.