9731991 The Research Opportunities for Minorities Program is a highly rigorous but exciting research-training program for undergraduates and post-baccalaureates who belong to groups underrepresented in basic-science research. The program provides participants up to 2 years of intensive research training in molecular biology through the Biotechnology (BT) Programs at Massachusetts Bay Community College (MBCC). Concomitant or prior admission to the BT program at MBCC is a prerequisite for entry into the ROMP. The majority of research training occurs in the BT laboratories at MBCC, the most advanced undergraduate research facility in the nation. However, each ROMP student undertakes at least one summer research externship at one of over 50 eminent research institutions in the United States and abroad. Representative of these are the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole; the Texas Medical Center, Galveston; The University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Molecular Biology Institute of the University of Quebec, Canada. For every student admitted, the ROMP begins with an intensive 10- week molecular-biology research project conducted at MBCC in the summer preceding their Fall entry into the BT program. The projects are designed to be expandable and extend into the subsequent academic year. During the academic year, all ROMP students are assigned 4 or 5 entering Freshman BT students who must conduct tangential sub-projects under the direction of ROMP students. This mentoring role is designed to foster leadership skills and research-management skills in ROMP students. In the second summer of the ROMP, participants can undertake a challenging research externship at one the many foreign and domestic research institutions that collaborate with the ROMP. Summer research projects are then extended into the second and final year of the Program as described above. ROMP students are assisted in advancing to baccalaureate or graduate-degree programs by MBCC, which h olds numerous transfer and application- articulation agreements with colleges and universities throughout the United States and abroad.
