The Harbor-UCLA Initiative for Minority Student Development (IMSD), initially funded in 1998, represents a successful partnership between a research-intensive institution (Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute - REI) with an education-focused state university (California State University Dominguez Hills - CSUDH) which has a predominantly underrepresented minority student body. The current proposal seeks support for equipment that will enhance the research activities of REI mentors involved in programs designed to train minority students for careers in biomedical research. The items of equipment were selected because of their immediate utility to multiple research groups with the potential to enhance research training opportunities for students working with these mentors and their research groups. Careful consideration was given to a """"""""value added"""""""" approach, in which equipment sought will enhance the research activities already on campus as well as focused novel approaches to understand the mechanisms of diseases. Acquisition of these pieces of equipment will accelerate the pace of the research of the IMSD students and their mentors and permit them to ask scientific questions that previously would have been virtually impossible to answer. The advantage of this approach is that the expertise and research projects are already in place to maximize the potential use of this additional equipment. Requested are several major items of equipment: 1) ABI Prism 7900HT Real Time PCR; 2) PALM Microdissection System; 3) Bioscan Microplate Reader; 4) Alpha Innotech FluorChem 8900 Imaging System; 5) Kjeldahl Nitrogen Analyzer. Each of these items will directly assist in the training of IMSD (and other NIGMS-funded) students. Institutional support is given in the form of commitments to support maintenance costs for the items, provision of space (with necessary alterations) to house the equipment, investigators' expertise and their technical support and supplementary funds to complement this application. ? ?
