R25 Summer Research Program for Undergraduate Students in PharmacoNeuroimmunology (PNI)

The R25 Summer Research Program in PharmacoNeuroImmunology (PNI) provides up to six meritorious undergraduate students an intensive laboratory-based research experience to increase their participation in biomedical graduate research programs. There is a well-recognized need to train biomedical scientists in an interdisciplinary and translational field that focuses on the interactions of drugs of abuse with the nervous and immune systems and integrates our understanding of these physiological interactions with their behavioral counterparts. We will accomplish this by offering an intensive 10- week research experience that will provide undergraduate students the necessary academic and research skills to ensure their competitiveness toward entering the next phases of their career - i.e., doctoral programs or professional schools- medical, dental or veterinary school. The PNI summer program is part of the comprehensive Life Science Undergraduate Research Program (LSSURP) at the University of Minnesota.

The PNI summer program is composed of an intensive laboratory-based research experience that entails close interaction with and mentorship by a program faculty member that focuses on drug abuse research. This laboratory work is supplemented by a comprehensive educational curriculum, which includes seminars by program faculty on topics in biomedical research, ethics, and laboratory safety, and a focused student research poster symposium. An innovative component of our PNI program proposal is to deliver education modules with small group discussion. In addition, Dr.

Jesse L. Mason, an alumnus of LSSURP and the T32 PNI training program, will provide a series of sessions for PNI summer students targeted toward dealing with adversity as a graduate student. Three measures of evaluation will be collected on a yearly basis: 1) Assessment of the 10-week summer research experience by participating undergraduate students and faculty in the program. This assessment will come in two ways from the LSSURP survey and a PNI specific survey; 2) The PNI program itself will be supported by the Advisory Committee to verify that we are meeting the goals of the program and 3) Outcome assessment of the students that were in the program.

We will track the careers in biomedical sciences of the past summer PNI trainees.

Grant Number: 5R25DA039074-10
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: MAXIM CHEERAN