The Ponce School of Medicine Research Center in Minority Institutions Program during its five years of operation, has provided the foundation for the development of significant research activities among its faculty members in the Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, and has provided the scientific support for the implementation of a Ph.D. program in Biomedical Sciences in the institution. The success of the RCMI Program has been used as the basis of a long range research master plan at Ponce School of Medicine where specific areas of competence are identified, together with realistic goals and objectives. According to the plan, the research activities of both basic sciences and clinical faculty will be classified in three major categories- Biomedical Sciences, Clinical and AIDS related projects - with a high degree of interaction and collaboration between them. These activities will be strongly interrelated to the existing Ph.D. program and will be nourished by the research participation of the graduate students as part of their thesis requirements. The total research activities of Ponce School of Medicine will be structurally supported mainly by the proposed RCMI-AIDS program, which will provide resources for state-of-the-art instrumentation, faculty improvement, the animal research facility, library resources and administration support. Other external sources providing fiscal help for the research effort will be provided by the existing MBRS program, the Experimental Program for the Stimulation of Competitive Research (EPSCOR) Program, sponsored jointly by NSF and the University of Puerto Rico, the approval of R01 projects by NIH, and other private and government sources. A visual presentation of the conceptual research master plan is presented in the following pages. Individual research projects needs for scientific instrumentation are presented and justified in each case. Specific plans for development of new initiatives, such as the AIDS sub-program, the Environmental Toxicology project and the Immunology-ImmunoChemistry project, are separately presented in this proposal. The integration of research work with the graduate program is stressed, mainly through the creation of research participation opportunities for the students in each proposed project.
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