This award is funded by the Divisions of Chemistry and Biological Infrastructure at NSF. The University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh REU Site will select nine students every summer to participate in research projects with faculty mentors in the area of proteomics and functional genomics. Diverse, interdisciplinary research projects in microbial physiology, plant biology, plant physiology, plant biochemistry, molecular parasitology, vertebrate vision physiology, environmental microbiology, cell and developmental biology, virology, and comparative genomics are offered. Students will become familiar with, and have full access to, state-of-the-art instrumentation housed within the Proteomics and Functional Genomics Core Facility at UW Oshkosh. A 2-week lab course will provide students with the necessary set of basic skills to succeed in their research projects. Communication skills of students will be honed through student presentations of their results and participation in research group meetings, professional development seminars, and journal clubs. Additional activities will be included to ensure group cohesion and collegiality. The specific objectives of this REU Site are to: 1) provide undergraduates with practical experience in the timely and powerful methodologies that define the frontiers of life science research today, 2) increase the global competitiveness of tomorrow's life science workforce by augmenting the number of undergraduates trained in essential techniques in proteomics and functional genomics, 3) increase numbers of members of underrepresented groups pursuing careers in advanced biological research, and 4) foster development of diverse, collegial research communities of aspiring scientists. Interested students should visit http://reu.uwosh.edu, or contact Dr. Todd Sandrin (920-424-1104 or sandrin@uwosh.edu).

Project Report

Intellectual Merit: REU sites are intended to encourage young people to pursue careers in scientific research. Our site emphasized research in the fields of Proteomics and Functional Genomics (http://reu.uwosh.edu). These are essential fields of inquiry that emerged after the completion of the mapping and sequencing of several species entire genomes (i.e. the identification of every single genes DNA composition). Two of our specific goals were to: 1) provide undergraduates at decisive stages of their undergraduate education with practical experience in these emergent methodologies and, 2) increase the global competitiveness of tomorrow's life science workforce by augmenting the number of undergraduates trained in these essential techniques. Toward that end we recruited eight students to a ten-week summer research projects with faculty mentors from UW Oshkosh’s Biology and Chemistry departments. Student participants worked with faculty mentors using techniques in proteomics and functional genomics to investigate diverse, interdisciplinary research questions. They addressed questions in the following areas of research: plant evolutionary genetics, vision physiology of squirrels, developmental biology, biofuel production in photosynthetic prokaryotes, ecological genomics of termite gut microbes, bacterial resistance to silver nanoparticles. In addition to providing research opportunities we assess their acquisition of knowledge in the topic, require activities designed to foster their communication skills, provide ethical training and career counseling. To assess the ability of our Site to increase student participant knowledge in proteomics and functional genomics, we employed pre- and post-test assessment instruments designed to determine what they know before they arrive and compare it to their knowledge at the end of our 10 week session. Improvement for individual participants varied considerably, but the average increase over all participants was ~67%, thus our participants more than doubled their knowledge of proteomics and functional genomics. These values represent the mean percentage of fourteen multiple choice questions and 3 short answer questions that were answered correctly on a pre-test given at the start of our REU and a post-test given at the conclusion. In addition to increasing knowledge, our Site instills confidence in student participants' ability to use proteomics and functional genomics-based approaches to addressing research questions. Student responses to two questions on our end-of-program survey demonstrated this. We asked students to respond to the following statement using a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree): 'I am more familiar with and proficient in techniques in proteomics and functional genomics after participating in this REU Site.' The mean response of cohorts from 2008 to 2012 to this statement was 4.68. Broader Impacts: Two additional goals of our program were to: 3) increase numbers of women and members of other underrepresented groups pursuing careers in advanced biological research, and 4) foster development of diverse, collegial research communities of aspiring scientists. To achieve these goals we recruited students from target institutions with more limited research programs, especially primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) and two-year colleges. From 2008 to 2012, women composed 68% of our cohort, and underrepresented minorities 39%. Taken together, women and underrepresented groups comprised 90% of our participants. Regarding home institutions of student participants, 68% of participants were from PUIs, 18% from 2-yr institutions and 14 %) from PhD granting institutions. As our assessment data demonstrate, our REU Site appears to be having significant and positive impacts on the abilities of students to clearly discern whether to pursue a career in scientific research. . Most of our participants from 2008 to 2012 (54%) have entered or are intending to enter graduate school. Two (7%) participants were seeking/have obtained employment in research in the private sector. Twenty-nine percent of our student participants have entered professional programs (e.g., medical school). One (2%) of our prior participants will become a high school science teacher. One (2%) of our Native American students from a two-year tribal college entered a four-year degree program. The remaining two Native American students (one from a tribal two-year college and one from UW Oshkosh) have completed four-year degrees and on is now in a PhD program. In 2012, 80% of our participants intended to pursue a graduate degree in a relevant field of scientific research

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI)
Application #
0753525
Program Officer
Sally E. O'Connor
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
2008-07-01
Budget End
2013-06-30
Support Year
Fiscal Year
2007
Total Cost
$382,326
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Oshkosh
State
WI
Country
United States
Zip Code
54901