This R25 application for an R25 NIH Summer Research Experience Program proposes to develop and field a 9 week summer research program in alcohol research, targeted at undergraduate students who have completed two years of college education. The program is broadly aimed at preparing undergraduate students for advanced training in health related scientific disciplines focusing on alcohol-related research Each year seven students will be drawn from a national pool of applicants with a major emphasis in recruiting students from under-represented minority groups in STEM and biomedical disciplines. The proposed program, the MU Alcohol Research Training Summer School (MU- ARTSS) at the University of Missouri - Columbia, will consist of a one-week intensive set of didactic lectures on alcohol research (covering topics such as concepts and definitions, epidemiology, genetics, neuropharmacology, neurophysiology, individual differences, developmental approaches, assessment and treatment, etc.) and responsible conduct of research and human subjects issues. These lectures are supplemented by laboratory demonstrations of mobile and ambulatory assessment, structural and functional neuroimaging, and laboratory administration of alcohol to human subjects. Following the week-long introduction to alcohol research, students embark on an 8-week internship in the lab of a mentor conducting alcohol research. All students are required to develop a project proposal, conduct a literature review, conduct relevant data analyses, and prepare their project for both a formal poster presentation and a formal oral presentation. Other MU-ARTSS activities include: (1) weekly brown bag seminars covering specific research skills, ongoing status updates on research projects, and professional development issues, and (2) weekly movie nights where classic films about alcohol spanning more than 80 years of film history are shown and discussed in order to help students gain an appreciation of the clinical phenomena to which their work relates. In addition to MU-ARTSS specific activities, students will participate in multiple programs offered by the MU Office of Undergraduate Research which we refer to as the MU-Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Here students interact with research faculty and students from across campus in multiple venues including a Professional Development series, more extended instruction in the responsible conduct of research, a lecture serious, and an end-of-the-program poster session. In this way, MU- ARTSS students will have a chance to become more broadly socialized in the community of science and appreciate work in disciplines outside their own. The program draws on the Department of Psychological Science's strong emphasis on alcohol research and the large number of active alcohol research programs currently ongoing. The proposed program will expand the formal alcohol training emphasis at the graduate and postdoctoral levels (currently supported, in part, by a T32 and K05 to the proposed program director) to undergraduates from across the country.
This program will support a nine-week summer research program that will enhance the research knowledge, skills and experience of undergraduates participants and prepare them for graduate school and careers as research scientists in health-related disciplines. The program is designed to facilitate the pipeline of young promising scientist in the field of alcohol use disorders.
| Davis, Christal N; Natta, Shanaliz S; Slutske, Wendy S (2017) Moderation of Genetic Influences on Alcohol Involvement by Rural Residency among Adolescents: Results from the 1962 National Merit Twin Study. Behav Genet 47:587-595 |
