How Racial disparity in oral health has been well documented for several decades. However, the disparity persists, particularly between African Americans and other ethnic groups, despite advances in diagnosis and treatment. Increasing diversity in oral health research and care workforce is an effective strategy to improve the Nation's capacity to address and eliminate oral health disparities. In this project, we propose a full-time eight-week summer research experience program (SREP) at Howard University, aiming at engaging, recruiting and training undergraduate students from underrepresented minority and other disparity populations into minority health care and oral health disparity research. This SREP is designed to be a specialized didactic and mentored academic program with a series of formal and informal research and education activities tailored for recruiting and training undergraduate students. To provide effective mentoring for the students, we will: 1) develop a highly networked team of motivated and skilled mentors from various disciplines through the strong partnership between Howard and Johns Hopkins Universities; and 2) develop an effective and sustainable research training and education infrastructure by establishing a 3-tiered Mentoring System, Committees of Execution and Advising, and an Evaluation Core. The 3-tiered Mentoring System is specifically designed for mentoring each participating undergraduate by a primary mentor with basic, translational or public research focus at Howard, a secondary senior mentor at Johns Hopkins and other institutes, and a career development advisory mentor from oral health professionals. The SREP is also designed to be an extension for two existing training programs at Howard University College of Dentistry: the NIH funded P20 program for training dental school students and faculty, and the HRSA funded Post-doctoral Training Program in Pediatric Dentistry (PTPD). Different from the two programs, the proposed SREP emphasizes on providing research experience for underrepresented undergraduates in oral health disparity. This program, combined with the P20 and PTPD programs, will bring together Howard students from diverse backgrounds and interests to create a rich mix of participants from across disciplinary backgrounds. Through the SREP, we will be able to provide summer research training for five highly qualified students every year over the 5-year funding period (a total of 25 students). By participating in multi-disciplinary research projects and education events of senior investigators who will serve as mentors and role models, the students will gain valuable research experience and knowledge in oral health, and promote them into advanced education in oral health. Successful completion of this program will have significantly impacted the dental, oral and craniofacial research and training environment at Howard University College of Dentistry.
We propose a full-time eight-week summer research experience program at Howard University, aiming at engaging, recruiting and training undergraduate students from underrepresented minority and other disparity populations into minority health care and oral health disparity research. The program is designed to be a specialized didactic and mentored academic program with tailored research and education activities. We will also develop a highly networked team of motivated and skilled mentors from various disciplines by establishing a strong partnership between Howard and Johns Hopkins Universities. By participating in multi-disciplinary research projects and education events, the students will gain valuable research experience and knowledge, and promote them into advanced education in oral health disparity.
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| Zhu, Shaowei; Liu, Yuanyi; Wang, Paul C et al. (2017) Recombinant Immunotoxin Therapy of Glioblastoma: Smart Design, Key Findings, and Specific Challenges. Biomed Res Int 2017:7929286 |
