This competing renewal for the Short Term Training Program for Minorities will continue to serve to focus the considerable strengths and diversity of multi-departmental and institutional research dealing with vascular biology at Vanderbilt University and Meharry Medical College into a coherent framework for introducing research design and methods. Stipends for 10 undergraduate students will be available. The undergraduate students will be recruited from across the country. Every effort will be made to have these students participate in the program for two consecutive summers. While the training program will focus primarily on research, the students will be offered the opportunity to attend a three week course on Introduction to Research, where they will obtain basic skills in research that can be applied to their own summer work and a ten week course on Concepts and Mechanisms in Molecular Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry which will help prepare them for future graduate work; a workshop on opportunities (careers) in research; a workshop on Ethics in Research; and attendance and participation in a seminar series presented by the faculty preceptors. Two courses are optional but the workshop and seminar are not. At the end of the training program, the students will present their work to the other students and the faculty as an oral presentation, very much in the style of those given at national meetings. This will be accompanied by a short written report of their summer research activities, in the style of a journal article. This training is intended to prepare the students for what is needed and expected to succeed in graduate school, to increase their interest in vascular biology research, and to introduce them to research -techniques, methodologies and career options. Training facilities include 8 adjacent buildings at Vanderbilt and the Department of Microbiology at Meharry Medical College. Multidisciplinary research training of future research scientists in this area is expected to be critical to discovering the new information that will lead to improved diagnosis, prevention and therapy for cardiovascular disease.
