INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR UNDERGRADUATES

DESCRIPTION (taken from application): As biomedical research enters the post-genomics age, much of our understanding of complex, system level interactions which control biological processes will arise from rigorous interdisciplinary interactions between the physical and biological sciences. It is our goal to cultivate this interaction by introducing undergraduate students whom otherwise would study and work solely in the physical sciences to the exciting frontiers of biomedical research. This proposal is to establish an innovative undergraduate summer research program, known as the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Program (IBRP), which will place up to ten students per year who are concentrating in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering into laboratories which focus on biomedical research. The students will work directly under the supervision of NIH-supported investigators, both at Stony Brook and at Brookhaven National Labs, in disciplines that range from structural biology, genomics and signal transduction to brain imaging, tissue plasticity and drug delivery. It is fully intended that the teacher-student relationship will flow in both directions, as the NIH investigators will inevitably be exposed to new perspectives of their own research as catalyzed by the contributions of the physical sciences students. In addition, the students will participate in six additional components designed to supplement and enhance their research activities, including a biweekly workshop on research-related subjects such as ethics, a biweekly journal club, a seminar series, and research presentations at a concluding campus-wide celebration of undergraduate research. Ultimately, it is hoped that many of these IBRP students will decide to continue their training, at the graduate level, in areas such as functional genomics, bioinformatics, bioengineering, or biomedicine. Indeed, it is hoped that the most successful of these students will enter our own graduate training programs in the biomedical sciences.