This is a proposal for the establishment of a Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) Program at Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine (UCCEM) in Puerto Rico. UCCEM was founded in 1976 as a private, non-profit medical school, since 1978 and 1979 it has been accredited by the Puerto Rico Council of Higher Education (CES) and by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), respectively. In 1989, the CES gave full accreditation to a Graduate Program in the Basic Biomedical Sciences which offers M.A. and M.S. degrees. In 1992 memorandums of understanding (MOU's) were established with two neighboring institutions serving a large base of undergraduate minority students of PR, Universidad del Sagrado Corazon and Interamerican University. The accredited health- science (M.D.) and graduate (M.A., M.S.) programs of UCCEM plus the consortium arrangements with the undergraduate hispanic-servant universities cited above, provide the framework for implementing an MBRS program at UCCEM which embraces the mission of the national MBRS program of the NlGMS of """"""""seeking to provide expanded opportunities for underrepresented minorities to choose and participate in biomedical research careers and developing competitive biomedical research scientists who are also ethnic minorities"""""""". The specific goals of the MBRS Program at UCCEM are consonant to the goals of the National MBRS Program: l. to assist research scientists at UCCEM in the development, and continuity of their research capabilities and activities, 2. to expose undergraduate students from our affiliated institutions, Sacred Heart University and Interamerican University, to biomedical research activities, 3. to motivate minority undergraduates from our affiliated colleges and universities to pursue biomedical research careers, 4. to attract minority graduate degree students from these affiliated, and other non- affiliated, institutions to initiate studies in our Graduate Program and to pursue biomedical research careers, and 5. to attract minority graduate medical students at UCCEM to participate in scientific - biomedical research activities, and motivate them to pursue biomedical research careers in the clinical sciences. These objectives will be achieved by the MBRS Program at UCCEM via the following planned and proposed specific activities: l. faculty initiated, scientifically- meritorious, biomedically relevant research projects of subproject- Principal Investigators where the following UCCEM students can participate: graduate students, and medical students (summer time), and 2. implementation of the consortium with our affiliated institutions for the participation during the academic and summer periods of undergraduate/graduate students in the research projects of Principal Investigators at UCCEM.
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