We request funding for a five-year renewal of our very successful Cancer Research Experiences for Students (CaRES) program (grant 5R25 CA76023) that has been funded by NCI's R25E program since 1999. CaRES provides paid short summer cancer research internships for University of Alabama School of Medicine (UAB) medical students, UAB public health students, and other UAB graduate health professional students, all of whom are American citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. In its 15th year, CaRES has supported over 500 students to date. Typically first-year medical students and graduate students participate, but students who hold a letter of acceptance qualify for CaRES in the summer prior to enrolling in their degree program. CaRES projects have been conducted on the UAB campus under the guidance of UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center faculty members. If we are granted additional funding we will enhance CaRES in four ways. We will broaden student eligibility by recruiting health professional students from three Alabama universities (University of South Alabama, Auburn University, and Samford University) in addition to UAB; we will increase the number of opportunities for cancer research in genomics and translational research by basing some CaRES projects at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama; we will tighten our student-preceptor research agreements by means of a mentoring contract; and we will increase the depth and breadth of instruction in career development and in the responsible conduct of research through an expanded seminar series and by affording students the opportunity to participate in other seminars, workshops, and courses. With these innovations we believe that CaRES will become nationally recognized as a premier R25E short- term cancer research training program. Further, we believe that our innovations will ignite collaborative cancer research and service activity in Alabama, a state characterized by low income, low education, and a large minority population that is medically under-served and at high risk for cancer and other chronic diseases.
We request funding to continue our 'CaRES' cancer research training program that pays UAB medical students and public health students to do summer cancer research projects. For the first time we will include students from the University of South Alabama, Auburn University, and Samford University in the CaRES program; and we will base some CaRES projects at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville. We anticipate that by virtue of their CaRES research experiences some of the participating students will choose cancer research careers, accomplishing the main goal of the CaRES program.
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