A short-term training grant to support the research training of veterinary students in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University (WSU) is proposed to be extended for five years. The program proposed would train eight veterinary students with NIH funds and an additional position funded by the Office of the Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. Faculty advisors will supplement the stipend of each of the students. At least two of the students each year will be ethnic minority students. Training will be conducted in three broad scientific areas: 1) infectious and genetic diseases;2) neurpsciences;and, 3) physiologic and oncological sciences. Forty-one faculty members with active research programs will participate. The program will consist primarily of one-to-one mentoring by faculty members and individual veterinary students. Additionally, there will be lectures, seminars, laboratory research meetings, discussion groups, and a poster presentation will be associated with the three-month summer research program. The faculty advisors, the Program Director and Co-Director, the students available, the facilities, the equipment in the College of Veterinary Medicine at WSU provide an exceptionally fertile environment for this program. Quality basic research, a strong rigorous graduate education program, well-supported extramurally-funded research programs by the proposed faculty advisors, and an administrative structure that promotes good research, are factors that contribute to the strength of the proposal. WSU veterinary students will select their specific faculty advisor by reviewing the credentials of potential advisors and meeting with several of them and, eventually, by mutural concurrence, selecting an advisor and preparing a competitive proposal. A selection committee will rank the proposals and select the highest ranked proposals for positions. Ethnic minority veterinary students will be recruited from other U.S. colleges of veterinary medicine for participation in this program. Numerous opportunities are available to the students who complete the short-term training program for other research opportunities later in the veterinary curriculum.
