The University of Montana School of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences has a long standing history and commitment to the recruitment and training of minority students (principally Native American Indians) for degrees in pharmacy and physical therapy. The recently obtained Native American Center of Excellence (NACOE) grant builds on strength from funding obtained for the HHS-Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP), the NIH-Bridges to Baccalaureate Program (BRIDGES), and the NSF-EPSCoR Program to provide both the environment and the infrastructure necessary to offer degree training for under-represented minorities in pharmacy (Pharm.D.), physical therapy (M.S. and D.P.T.), and more recently in graduate education (M.S., Ph.D.). Research infrastructure has dramatically increased in the School's Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the past ten years to the point where the School is ranked 1lth of 85 schools/Colleges of Pharmacy in NIH funding per Ph.D. faculty. The Department has created two state-approved research centers and offers two M.S. and two Ph.D. programs. The primary goal of the Endowment Fund Program is to add at least two tenure track minority faculty through training and recruitment efforts, while perpetuating recent success in the recruitment, retention, and training of minority students in Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, and Graduate programs. Focus on minority health disparities research will continue to be expanded. These goals will be accomplished as follows: 1) creating new tenure track faculty lines for minority faculty (preferably Native American Indians), 2) Enhancing opportunities for minority students who earn the Pharm.D. or D.P.T. degree to obtain postdoctoral fellowship training in clinically relevant areas, 3) Enhancement of opportunities for minority students to pursue graduate training leading to the Ph.D. degree. 4) Perpetuation of a strong program to recruit and train undergraduate minority students, 5) Use of endowment income to leverage additional institutional/state and federal support, and 6) Progressive growth of the endowment corpus. Priorities for use of the endowment income are A) Recruitment and training of two minority PhD, students and one minority post Pharm.D. Fellow (Years 1-3) and B) Complete training and/or recruitment of two minority faculty with priority given to Native American Faculty candidates, particularly those involved in health disparities research (Years 3-5). ? ?
| Calderón-Garcidueñas, Lilian; Cross, Janet V; Franco-Lira, Maricela et al. (2013) Brain immune interactions and air pollution: macrophage inhibitory factor (MIF), prion cellular protein (PrP(C)), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra), and interleukin-2 (IL-2) in cerebrospinal fluid and MIF in serum differenti Front Neurosci 7:183 |
