Our Short-Term Training Grant Program has been continuously funded through the NIH since 1980. The grant has supported 16-18 students each year for a 10-12 week fellowship period. In addition, we have built considerable support from Wake Forest and receive supplemental funds to cover the expenses for another 16-20 students each year. There is a strong tradition at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM) to encourage medical students to consider careers in academic medicine. The Medical Student Research Program (MSRP) had been a critical component of this tradition. The core faculty represents five thematic clusters that include diabetes, digestive, and kidney research (DDK ), surgical science, regenerative medicine, neurobiology and addiction, and cardiovascular science. While each cluster focuses on a particular biomedical research theme, the core research faculty for this program represent [sic] a wide range of biomedical disciplines with considerable collaboration within and between disciplines. Our faculty includes established investigators with excellent research and funding records in addition to considerable experience with mentoring. The program and core faculty strives to provide a nurturing environment that will encourage our medical students to pursue careers in academic science. Specific Aim: To promote and administer a training program to provide the most promising medical students at Wake Forest University School of Medicine with a meaningful short-term research experience. To carry out this aim, we will: ¿ Identify and recruit the most promising medical students. ¿ Provide a nurturing research training environment for medical students to increase their interest in biomedical research, and thus promote decisions to pursue careers in academic medicine. ¿ Continuously monitor the progress of the training program, using feedback from trainees, mentors, with input from the program's Executive Committee.

Training our physicians to perform biomedical science is critical to the future of medical research. This training grant gives our most promising medical students a short-term training experience in biomedical research.