Project Summary/Abstract WesternU is one of the few universities in the United States devoted exclusively to train professionals with a distinct focus on health science education, currently educating about 4,000 professional students each year. The diversity in the incoming students consists of 10-40% (depending on the Program) from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds. Allergic and immunologic diseases are either primary or secondary to diseases involving several systems, including oral health, eyes, feet and ankle, and others. Most of the health professionals, including Osteopathic Medicine physicians, Podiatrist, Optometrist, Dentist, and Pharmacists routinely see patients with the prevalent allergic and immunologic diseases. Thus, the expansion of opportunities and resources for research training of future health professionals in biomedical research areas relevant to NIAID mission will have a profound impact in advancing scientific knowledge and better management of patients. Our proposal builds upon the extensive pre-clinical and clinical research and mentoring expertise of WesternU faculty who conduct research in an array of areas in basic, translational, and clinical sciences, tackling complex health problems. We will strategically recruit 15 qualified, motivated, and research-oriented participants per year from a large pool of qualified underrepresented and disadvantaged health professional students from WesternU Osteopathic Medicine, Dentistry, Optometry, Podiatry, and Pharmacy programs in the proposed 2.5 months (~10 weeks) R25 training program in the summer between the first and second year. The NIAID R25 full-time summer research education will focus on student research interests in allergic and immunologic diseases, the most prevalent disorders, and commonly encountered in clinical practice. This will facilitate the participants in achieving their goals to become the next generation of research workforce conducting state-of-the-art research in NIAID mission areas and apply knowledge in areas of extremely high importance for public health. The research education will be supplemented with a cultural capacity training workshop, mentoring responsive to diversity, and courses in research techniques, scientific and grant writing, responsible conduct of research, including ethics in research and reproducibility of the research findings through scientific rigor and reproducibility, and presentation skills. We have selected a group of experienced advisors to interact with R25 trainees and actively participate in all activities of the R25 program including daily research training, regular meetings with students, journal clubs, Fall Research Day, and publishing research findings. The R25 participants, mentors and research advisors will submit their comments and suggestions on the program. Research and scholarly activity of the participants will be tracked throughout their program and beyond during residency and professional and research career. An evaluation committee will review the outcomes of the program to make suggestions to meet core objectives and make improvements. The R25 program is enthusiastically supported by the WesternU Provost and the Deans of the Colleges participating in this program.

Project Narrative The R25 research education program provides mentored summer research opportunities to health professional students from diverse background who are qualified and highly motivated in biomedical research relevant to NIAID mission. The goal is to effectively train and inspire them through mentored-research experience with instruction in the responsible conduct of research, instruction in methods for enhancing reproducibility, grant and scientific writing, and research methods. The long-term purpose of this research program is to motivate the next generation of underrepresented and disadvantaged health professionals to continue their quest for knowledge and become a successful and effective researcher and integrate their knowledge in better management of patients.