The MARC program at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) has been funded by the NIH for the past 30 years. The primary goal of this program is to ensure that underrepresented minority (URM) students are provided with every opportunity for success in entering and mastering graduate level work. In 2007, nearly half of California's high school graduates were from URM groups (36.9% Hispanic, 7.4% African American, 3.4% Filipino and 0.8% Native American). Yet, when we look at the population of students working towards Ph.D.s and the population of doctoral-level researchers and faculty on our campuses, these groups fall far below proportional representation. The initial aim of the UCSC MARC program is to increase the rate at which underrepresented-minority undergraduates on our campus become involved in cutting-edge research. Once these students taste the excitement of participating in an interactive research community, we carefully guide them towards the pursuit of Ph.D. degrees and, ultimately, becoming active, professional researchers. We have been highly successful in our goals. Over the past 5 years, 50% of the students who were supported by our training program have gone on to enter Ph.D. programs. While we are proud of such achievements, we also continue to seek ways and means to improve the program. In this competitive renewal, we are requesting funding for 18 training positions for students, an increase from our current 14 slots. Our specific goals for the next 5-year funding period are: 1) to direct 75% of our MARC students into Ph.D. programs in biomedical fields of study. 2) To improve the rate at which students go directly into Ph.D. programs. 3) To create a larger community of research-inspired URM students, including both trainees receiving MARC stipends and additional students, called Research Affiliates for Diversity (RADS), with the purpose of guiding these additional students towards entry into Ph.D. programs.

Public Health Relevance

The primary goal of this program is to ensure that underrepresented minority students are provided with every opportunity for success in entering and mastering graduate level work.
We aim to support a vision of proportional representation of people from all groups in the Ph.D. and professor ranks.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
MARC Undergraduate NRSA Institutional Grants (T34)
Project #
5T34GM007910-34
Application #
8476222
Study Section
Minority Programs Review Committee (MPRC)
Program Officer
Gaillard, Shawn R
Project Start
1980-07-01
Project End
2015-05-31
Budget Start
2013-06-01
Budget End
2014-05-31
Support Year
34
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$437,151
Indirect Cost
$25,103
Name
University of California Santa Cruz
Department
Public Health & Prev Medicine
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
125084723
City
Santa Cruz
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
95064
Volden, Roger; Palmer, Theron; Byrne, Ashley et al. (2018) Improving nanopore read accuracy with the R2C2 method enables the sequencing of highly multiplexed full-length single-cell cDNA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 115:9726-9731
Byrne, Ashley; Beaudin, Anna E; Olsen, Hugh E et al. (2017) Nanopore long-read RNAseq reveals widespread transcriptional variation among the surface receptors of individual B cells. Nat Commun 8:16027
White, Pamela M; Serbus, Laura R; Debec, Alain et al. (2017) Reliance of Wolbachia on High Rates of Host Proteolysis Revealed by a Genome-Wide RNAi Screen of Drosophila Cells. Genetics 205:1473-1488
Duncan, Miles C; Herrera, Natalia G; Johnson, Kevin S et al. (2017) Bacterial internalization is required to trigger NIK-dependent NF-?B activation in response to the bacterial type three secretion system. PLoS One 12:e0171406
Lam, Hanh; Schwochert, Joshua; Lao, Yongtong et al. (2017) Synthetic Cyclic Peptomers as Type III Secretion System Inhibitors. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 61:
Jimenez, Jorge; Chakraborty, Indranil; Del Cid, Anthony M et al. (2017) Five- and Six-Coordinated Silver(I) Complexes Derived from 2,6-(Pyridyl)iminodiadamantanes: Sustained Release of Bioactive Silver toward Bacterial Eradication. Inorg Chem 56:4784-4787
Pye, Cameron R; Hewitt, William M; Schwochert, Joshua et al. (2017) Nonclassical Size Dependence of Permeation Defines Bounds for Passive Adsorption of Large Drug Molecules. J Med Chem 60:1665-1672
Lorig-Roach, Nicholas; Still, Patrick C; Coppage, David et al. (2017) Evaluating Nitrogen-Containing Biosynthetic Products Produced by Saltwater Culturing of Several California Littoral Zone Gram-Negative Bacteria. J Nat Prod 80:2304-2310
Green, Abigail R; Barbour, Shannon; Horn, Thomas et al. (2016) Strict Regiospecificity of Human Epithelial 15-Lipoxygenase-2 Delineates Its Transcellular Synthesis Potential. Biochemistry 55:2832-40
Desjardins, Christopher A; Cohen, Keira A; Munsamy, Vanisha et al. (2016) Genomic and functional analyses of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains implicate ald in D-cycloserine resistance. Nat Genet 48:544-51

Showing the most recent 10 out of 22 publications