This proposal, submitted in response to RFA GM-02-005, requests $143,449 which, together with $15,000 in institutional cost-sharing funds, will be used to purchase equipment for the direct support of research education and training of undergraduate and graduate-student participants in the RISE Program at New Mexico State University (NMSU). Analysis of MBRS and RISE Program outcomes at NMSU indicates that minority RISE Program student admissions to and success in graduate school is strongly correlated with undergraduate research trainee productivity. That productivity in turn is closely coupled to the availability of modern equipment that enhances the type, the quality, and the accuracy of measurements; that increases the quantity of measurements possible in a given time; that reduces sample sizes required for analysis, and that enhances safety. The requested equipment was selected because it either does not exist at NMSU or is not available to the proposal's key personnel, all of whom are RISE Program mentors, and their RISE Program undergraduates. Yet the requested equipment is essential to fulfill the criteria above. Acquisition of the requested equipment will push each mentor's research forward and thereby give each student the best opportunity to be productive in the laboratory. It is anticipated that this will have a positive measurable effect on successful graduate school admissions and ultimately on the rate of Ph.D. production in the biomedical sciences. Although it will expand the opportunities for research education and training for RISE students, use of the equipment requested in NMSU's RISE-Program activities will not increase the Program's scope. The requested equipment items will affect students in three of the four Student-Development Activities of the NMSU RISE Program. These are the Individual Research Training Activity, the Group Research Training Activity, and Supplemental Instruction in Organic Chemistry. The equipment requested for Individual Research Training includes an inverted fluorescent microscope and a high-speed refrigerated centrifuge and rotors. The equipment requested for use in Group Research Training Development is a supercritical fluid extractor. For Supplemental Instruction in Organic Chemistry, the requested equipment will be used to upgrade an NMR spectrometer.
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