This award provides funds to establish a Research Experiences for Undergraduates Site in the Department of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University. Twelve undergraduates, from a diversity of collegiate and ethnic backgrounds, will be recruited to spend 8-12 summer weeks engaged in developmental biology research with faculty mentors who will be selected, on the basis of mutual interests, from the about 30 developmental biologists on the faculty. These staff members have active, well-equipped and funded research groups working on a wide range of developmental problems, ranging from mating and zygote formation in chlamydomonas, through organ-specific gene expression in transgenic plants, and control of germ cell differentiation in nematodes, to formation of patterned connections in the mammalian CNS. The emphasis of the program will be on getting each student actively engaged in increasingly independent research in one of these productive laboratories. However, to help the students view their own research in a broader scientific and professional context, four supplementary activities will be provided: (1) One week will be devoted full-time to introducing the REU students to some of the major research models and methods of contemporary developmental biology, through a coordinated series of lectures, discussions, demonstrations and hands-on laboratory experiences. (2) In each odd-numbered week, a member of the participating faculty will present an informal research seminar and discussion, designed specifically for these students. (3) In even-numbered weeks, the students will participate with Washington University graduate students, postdocs and faculty in an ongoing Developmental Biology Journal Club. (4) At the end of the summer, a weekend retreat will be held at which students in this program, together with other summer undergraduate research students, will present the results of their summer research either orally or as poster papers.
