(Taken from Application): The Center for Insect Science (CIS) at the University of Arizona proposes an Institutional Research and Career Development Award (IRCDA) program called """"""""Postdoctoral Excellence in Research and Teaching"""""""" or PERT. Our Minority Serving Institution (MSI) partner is Pima Community College, a multi-campus school with which the University of Arizona already has a long history of cooperative, minority student centered collaboration. CIS includes faculty from nine academic departments whose work utilizes insects in basic and applied research. Among CIS faculty are three members of the National Academy of Sciences. Insects such as Drosophila, Manduca and mosquitoes have been among the most important taxa contributing to basic biomedical research. CIS faculty have a strong record in training graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. A number of these faculty have also participated in curriculum development using insects as learning tools. Insects have been hugely successful in instruction because they are inexpensive, can be obtained in large numbers, and are easily incorporated into laboratory units dealing with everything from genetics and development to neurobiology and behavior. Seven components of the PERT program are (1) Excellence in postdoctoral research training; (2) Excellence in pedagogical training; (3) Mentored classroom teaching experiences; (4) Development and delivery of improved laboratory exercises, using inquiry approach activities with live insects for introductory biology courses at PCC; (5) Development, over five years, of a course sequence at PCC in biotechnology; (6) Professional development activities for PCC faculty, such as collaborative research with UA faculty, biotechnology workshops, and other courses; (7) Mentored research experience for PCC minority undergraduates at UA that will facilitate their transfer to the university setting and make them competitive for support through the new UA MARC program or the Undergraduate Biology Research Program (UBRP).
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