Students begin summer program aimed at luring them to life sciences careers

By Lorraine Cichowski and Gregory Buck

RICHMOND, Va. – Fourteen students from colleges and universities across the country have started classes at Virginia Commonwealth University as part of a two-year summer institute aimed at encouraging more young adults to pursue careers in bioinformatics and bioengineering.

The goal of the new VCU Bioinformatics and Bioengineering Summer Institute is to introduce students with backgrounds in engineering, biological sciences, computer sciences, mathematics and physical sciences to intensive education and research in bioengineering and bioinformatics in efforts to increase the number of students considering research careers in those areas. The program is funded by a $660,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the interest we received in the program because this is a significant commitment on the part of the students – two summers at VCU and one nine-month intersession back at their home schools where they will continue the research they begin this summer,” says Gregory A. Buck, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Study of Biological Complexity (CSBC) and principal investigator on the grant that funded the institute. Gerald E. Miller, Ph.D., chair of biomedical engineering, is the other co-principal investigator.

“The faculty is very impressed by the quality of this first-year class,” Buck said. “It is truly refreshing to work with such highly motivated and talented young students.”

The students, mostly rising juniors preparing for research careers, arrived in Richmond June 1 to begin the first 10-week summer session of the institute, which includes training in bioinformatics and bioengineering by faculty from the CSBC in VCU Life Sciences, VCU’s School of Engineering and other academic units at VCU. The institute pays students’ housing, meals, travel and other expenses and provides stipends.  

Students already have begun to integrate themselves as creative members of ongoing research projects in VCU labs. They also will have extensive contact with outside researchers brought in by the institute. Those outside researchers, whose work overlaps with students’ projects, will describe their research to the group as a whole, meet with individual students to talk science and participate in a series of discussions designed to offer students different paths leading to lives dedicated to research.

A unique aspect of the program, which is directed by Jeffrey Elhai, associate professor of biology and a faculty member of the CSBC, establishes a process in which students are mentored by members of the VCU faculty as well as faculty members at their home institutions, working together to arrive at a 15-month program that exploits the strengths of both schools. 

In addition to VCU, schools represented include Grinnell College in Iowa; Monmouth College in Illinois; Goucher College in Maryland; Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts; William Jewell College in Missouri; Hiram College, Kenyon College and Oberlin College in Ohio; Willamette College in Oregon; Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and the University of Richmond and Virginia Tech in Virginia. Students are majoring in biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, computer science and mathematics.

NIH and NSF provided $6 million over four years to fund the joint programs at nine universities, including VCU.  Summer institutes also are being held at California State University, Clemson University, Iowa State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University of Minnesota and University of Pittsburgh.

The summer institutes are a high priority of NIH and NSF, which are collaborating in efforts to encourage the interdisciplinary training and development of professionals who will work on the next generation of disease diagnosis and therapy, biotechnology and drug discovery.

For more information, see www.vcu.edu/csbc/bbsi.