Saturday, May 18, 2024
5/18/2024
Program Summary/Abstract: The mission of the CBI training program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is to provide trainees with cutting edge research opportunities and hands on, cross-disciplinary training across not only discipline, but departmental lines. UMBC is a leader in promoting diversity within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and the CBI program has had significant success in producing strong and successful PhD students that have gone on to excellent positions in academia, biotech and pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and patent law. UMBC’s CBI program has four participating programs: UMBC’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, the Biological Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology programs, and UMB’s Pharmaceutical Sciences, The CBI program was initially funded in 2004 with 15 students and has grown significantly since that time. Currently there are 48 students participating in the program - 32 second year and beyond full members, and 16 first year students. Of these, 43 are TGE and twelve are from underrepresented (UR) groups. Five students (4 are from UR groups) are currently supported by the NIH training grant, however all of the full members (2nd year and beyond) participate in the same programmatic requirements as those supported on the grant. The students selected to be supported on the NIH grant are typically in their 3rd year and beyond to aide in having more time to make progress on their cross training. There are also currently 43 participating faculty from the three Departments. The CBI program requirements include doing (i) hands on cross disciplinary research in a collaborator’s laboratory that gives added value to the students’ dissertation research, (ii) taking an upper level course in another discipline, and (iii) presenting at national and international meetings in addition to (iv) participating in the weekly course, CHEM 715 “Issues at the Chemistry Biology Interface”. Because the students who are not supported on the CBI grant still have to do the same requirements as the NIH-supported Fellows, the PD has leveraged the significant programmatic support provided by the three departments, the Dean of UMBC’s College of Science and Mathematics, UMBC’s Vice President for Research and UMBC’s Provost, totaling $100K. This provides travel and supplies money for the students to present their research at conferences, as well as to use the funds for their cross training. In summary, the CBI program plans to continue to provide a meaningful training experience for a large cohort of strong students to increase the depth, breadth and diversity of the biomedical workforce.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
