The Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) program provides financial support and laboratory research training for minority students in the biomedical sciences. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the program supports graduate and undergraduate students who are supervised by faculty members from the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience; the College of Nursing; and the departments of biology, chemistry, and psychology.
MBRS, in its 20th year of continuous funding, helps alleviate the shortage of minority men and women in the United States in biomedical careers. It provides students with an intensive laboratory experience that includes designing and carrying out research projects and presenting the results of this research to students and faculty members at weekly MBRS seminars and workshops. In addition, students in the program discuss their research at professional scientific conferences and have their work published under their names in professional scientific journals.
Students are required to work a minimum of 15 hours a week under supervision of a faculty mentor. They participate in biweekly meetings at which they present their research findings and listen to presentations by visiting minority biomedical scientists.
There have been more than 100 graduates of the MBRS program, including 17 recipients of Ph.D. degrees. Following their work in the program, students have continued their graduate studies at such graduate and medical schools as Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and Boston University. As recipients of research grants, doctoral graduates of the program have continued their studies at such institutions as Rockefeller University, the Mayo Clinic, Yale University, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Others have taken tenure-track faculty positions at the University of Puerto Rico.
