NIH grant to fund UA students' research abroad program
Summary:
The National Institutes of Health has awarded University of Arizona a four-year, $915,000 grant to fund opportunities for students to travel abroad and conduct biomedical research.
Full Story:
The National Institutes of Health has awarded University of Arizona a four-year, $915,000 grant to fund opportunities for students to travel abroad and conduct biomedical research.
The grant is the fourth for the program, known as Biomedical Research Abroad: Vistas Open (BRAVO). BRAVO landed its first NIH grant of $579, 804 in 1993, its second in 1996, and its third in 2000.
With the new grant BRAVO plans to send eight undergraduates and two graduate or medical students abroad per year and to host two foreign mentors for short term research visits, according to Carol Bender, director of BRAVO.
Since the program began in 1992, it has sent 139 students abroad to participate in research projects in 27 countries. The program was started with funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, to introduce students to the international science community and to give students a more global perspective.
"The U.S. needs a population that is aware of the world around it. And science is an international activity, when people can come together and share scientific experiences [and] extend the goodwill of this country," Bender said.
Ten students traveled abroad this summer to work on research projects in South Africa, Belgium, Australia, Northern Ireland, Sweden, England, Peru, Germany, and Japan.
Brynne Crowell, who does research in electrophysiology in learning and memory at UA, will travel this semester to Florence, Italy, to work in a lab studying Alzheimer's disease.
"Science is global, and as a scientist, it is important to learn how to function in a global context," she said.
In one project, students in Peru are studying parasites, examining how diseases spread through drinking water, Bender said. In previous years students have traveled to Chile to look for medicinal plants that grow in arid environments. They then brought the plants back to study in their UA labs.
Flinn Scholars have also participated in BRAVO. Mark Fernandez ('98 ) traveled Germany to do orthopedic research. Eric Yip ('00) traveled to Ecuador during the summer of 2003 to study the sociality of two specific species of tropical spiders.
For more information:
"Grant to fund 40 students' research," Arizona Daily Star, 07/27/2005
"Spider, Spider," [UA Undergraduate Biology Research Program] Gazette, October 2003