The Society for Advancement of Chicano and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) has extensive success and experience in increasing minority participation in science. The long-term objective of this proposal is to increase the number of Chicanos/Latinos and Native Americans engaged in genomic research. This will be accomplished by 1) developing and implementing programs to make Chicanos/Latinos and Native Americans aware of Human Genome research, 2) develop Chicano and Native American scientists in Human Genome Research, 3) provide activities that will lead to an increase in the number of competitively prepared human genome scientists from this community. The rationale for the proposed activities in this application is that without early, specific and well thought-out interventions, and without opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and faculty to take part in career and educational development, our target communities will remain underrepresented in all aspects of genomic research.
The specific aims are: 1) to provide undergraduate students with the opportunities to develop an understanding of and competence in genomics/bioinformatics research. 2) to provide graduate students with support to pursue genomic/bioinformatics research. 3) support faculty at minority serving institutions to gain skills and develop research interests in genomic/bioinformatics research. The hypothesis to be tested is that, with the active mentoring, career development, and specific interventions provided by SACNAS as supported by NHGRI, undergraduate, graduate, and professional minority scientists will be retained in this ever important and emerging field and will achieve excellence in this endeavor. SACNAS has the professional and student base to draw on and is well positioned to successfully develop this pipeline program. The result stemming from these proposed activities will be an increase in the numbers of Chicano/Latino and Native American professionals and students that are involved in genomics and bioinformatics research. These activities will comprise the first focused efforts to address the issue of low rates of participation of Chicano/Latino and Native American professionals and students in genomics and bioinformatics research. The activities shown to be successful here will establish paradigms that can be applied for the advancement of underrepresented subsets of our population in other disciplines. ? ?
