This proposal from Occidental's Biochemistry Program will provide a summer research experience for eight undergraduates per year for three years, half of whom will be recruited from community colleges. Many of the community colleges that will be contacted have very large minority student populations, and a special thrust of this proposal is to encourage and enable these minority students to participate in the program and thus enhance their opportunity to pursue a degree in biochemistry. Occidental College's previous thirteen-year experience with community college students working in a summer research program in chemistry suggests these students generally have little or no opportunity to experience the excitement of scientific research at their local institution. Occidental College has long held a position of leadership in undergraduate research. The Biochemistry Program is jointly administered by faculty from both the Biology and Chemistry Departmepts. These departments are highly ranked in a number of undergraduate research categories and this strength will contribute to the proposed project. The experience gained in the previous thirteen-year undergraduate research program involving community college students in the Chemistry Department was recognized by one of the ten nationwide Merck Science Innovation Awards (1989), an NSF Special Creativity Award (1994), contributed to a NSF-AIRE award (1998) and a HHMI award (1996). The well-documented success of the program at Occidental strongly suggests this proposal will have a significant impact on the student participants. Furthermore, as demonstrated in the past, support from the REU program has been crucial in gaining additional support for the community college program from private sources. Students will work on the following on-going projects: (1) Kinetic Studies of Human Erythrocyte Glucose-6-phosphate Dehydrogenase Dimers (G6PD); (2) Molecular genetics of predation by the bacterial predator, Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus; (3) Biophysical Studies on Phospholipid Membranes; (4) Regulation of Immunoglobulin VDJ Rearrangement by a Mouse/Human Chimeric Heavy Chain; (5) Study on PQQ-dependent soluble glucose dehydrogenase (sGDH); and (6) Molecular Evolution of Ryanodine Receptor (RyR) Calcium Channels.
