The purpose of this application is to request NIH support to give three veterinary students each year the opportunity to be exposed to and engage in a full year of hypothesis-based biomedical research at the University of California, Davis (UCD) School of Veterinary Medicine (the School). Students, especially women and those from under represented minorities, with a keen interest in learning about biomedical research as a potential career path from any one of the first three years of the professional veterinary curriculum, will be recruited and encouraged to apply. Applications will be competitively reviewed, and the most outstanding students will be awarded with financial support to enable them to participate in a mentored, rigorous, flexible, customized, and cross disciplinary program in animal-oriented biomedical research for one full year, effectively creating a fifth year in which to complete the veterinary medical degree. Students accepted into this program will be exposed to a diversity of research themes in which animals are critical surrogates for the study of human and animal disease and development. An outstanding team of qualified and established faculty members from the Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine has agreed to serve as mentors in both laboratory and didactic settings. By capturing them at a formative stage of their veterinary medical science education, and introducing them to the excitement and passion of hypothesis-driven scientific research, the short range goal of this application is to encourage more students from a variety of backgrounds and interests to pursue advanced scientific training in research that will be the foundation for a lifetime career path. While we do not expect every student partaking of this one-year concentrated research opportunity to become the leading scientist in their field, the long term goal of this application is to prepare more research scientists with both the professional veterinary degree and advanced scientific degrees (Ph.D.) who can collectively participate in the national biomedical research enterprise and, in turn, improve and enhance the health of the nation. With these intentions, the Specific Aims of this application are the following: 1) To establish and organize an integrated and formalized year-long exposure to advanced research (YEAR) program opportunity for first through third year veterinary students to complement existing animal-oriented, hypothesis-driven biomedical research training programs; 2) To assemble an outstanding team of successful faculty researchers in a variety of research themes to serve as research mentors to veterinary students enrolled in the YEAR program; and 3) To advertise and market the YEAR program widely effectively so as to recruit and accept the most motivated and promising veterinary students, especially women and under-represented minorities.
