This proposal seeks to renew the """"""""Bridge to the Doctoral Degree: UPR to UMDNJ"""""""", which has been assisting underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students in making the transition from the M.S. Program in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Campus into the Ph.D. Programs in the Molecular Biosciences at UMDNJ Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS),Piscataway Campus. These Ph.D. programs represent a collaborative effort between UMDNJ-GSBS and the contiguous Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (RU). The M.S. in Biology Program at UPR-Mayaguez has a student population that is predominantly Puerto Rican, but the Program does not extend to a Ph.D. program to prepare students for careers as senior investigators in the biomedical sciences. However, UPR-Mayaguez has a long record of producing excellent candidates for the Ph.D. at other institutions, including at UMDNJ-GSBS, Piscataway and RU. To facilitate the transition of M.S. candidates at UPR-Mayaguez, this three-year Program was established, consisting of one year of course work at UPR-Mayaguez, followed by course work and research at UMDNJ. Students completing this Bridge program receive the M.S. degree from UPR and are admitted with advanced standing into the Ph.D. programs at UMDNJ-GSBS, interfacing with the existing UMDNJ-Rutgers University Pipeline Program, which supports URM candidates for the Ph.D. in their initial years of study. Now in the 6th year, we have enrolled eleven students in the program. Of these, 8 are progressing toward the M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. Three students have successfully bridged into the Ph.D. phase, with 2 of these now at an advanced level of their thesis work. Four others are in the Masters' phase. During the 5 years of the program, 4 students left the program in their first year or the beginning of their second year; 1 of these is in a Ph.D. program elsewhere, and one entered medical school in Puerto Rico. We continue to modify the program to deal with issues of recruitment and selection of appropriate students, preparation in Mayaguez, acclimatization during the transfer from Mayaguez to Piscataway, and program flexibility in Piscataway. This program continues to increase opportunities for talented Puerto Rican students at Mayaguez, and to increase the number of URM students in the Ph.D. program of UMDNJ and Rutgers, thereby expanding the range of students entering biomedical research careers at the Ph.D. level.
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