The present application is to renew a program that has been ongoing since 1991 and involves a collaboration between the University of Southern California Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology (CCMB) and the Los Angeles Unified School District Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School. The goal is to provide disadvantaged high school students with a substantial biomedical laboratory experience, which will allow them to experience the excitement of hands-on research and the fulfillment of completion of a significant amount of experimentation. The first phase is a full-time laboratory research experience for three months in the summer. In the first phase, the students will work with their faculty mentor to identify a fundamental research question, learn specific research techniques and identify a specific series of experiments to complete as their own project. The second phase, which involves the Biomedical Research Class in Bravo High School, allows the students to continue the research project initiated in the summer by completing their own experiments during five afternoons a week throughout the school year. The two phases are coordinated so that students have a concentrated research experience during the summer to learn the necessary research procedures and approaches so that during their high school biomedical research curriculum they can experience the excitement of completing an original research experiment. Several students have been able to continue their research projects for several years and the data that have been accumulated have been included in publications, abstracts and presentations.
