This competing continuation application requests funds to provide summer research apprenticeships for 16 disadvantaged students from Northwest area high schools. A parallel program provides a research experience or internship for two teachers who teach in schools have significant populations of disadvantaged students. Students and teachers are matched with faculty scientist preceptors who have ongoing research programs in the Schools of Medicine or Dentistry at the Oregon Health Sciences University or at the affiliated Oregon Regional Primate Research Center or Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Students and teachers are true participants in these research projects and they are expected to report to their peers on their work and their mentor's work. In addition to participating in daily activities in their preceptors' laboratories, all trainees meet weekly during the summer for a series of seminars that address a wide range of scientific and ethical issues in various areas of biomedical research. The long-term goals of this program are to give disadvantaged students and teachers hands-on exposure to health-related research and to create more pathways for disadvantaged students to establish careers in the health sciences.
