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Director: Marcelo Tolmasky, Ph.D.

Dept. Biological Science
California State University Fullerton
800 N State College Boulevard
Fullerton, CA 92834-6850

The MHIRT program is funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health. The training takes place at the participating institutions. The objectives of the program are:

to increase the numbers of students belonging to health disparities populations or underrepresented minorities that pursue advanced degrees in basic sciences, biomedical or clinical research fields
to make these students aware of minority and international health problems and to seek novel approaches to address them
to inculcate in these students the importance and opportunities of international collaboration in research to address health disparities from a global health perspective

Participating Institutions
▪ University of Oxford
▪ University of Cambridge
▪ University of London
▪ University of York
▪ Instituto Fundación Leloir
▪ Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas-UNSAM
▪ Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas "Dr.Carlos G. Malbran"
▪ School of Medicine, University of Buenos Aires
▪ Chiang Mai University

The summer research experience: The MHIRT scholars will travel to the foreign site and spend 10 weeks conducting research in the laboratory of their foreign research advisor. The foreign research advisor will be responsible for the scientific conduct of the work and having a suitable project and a properly equipped and safe laboratory equipment. The CSU faculty mentor will visit the laboratory to confirm that this is so and to deal with any problems or concerns that might arise. When appropriate, in consultation with the foreign research director and the MHIRT scholar, the CSU faculty mentor will identify and provide any extra instruction that might be needed with regard to safety, experimental design, interpretation of data, and use of various computer packages for the analysis of data. The mentor will also help the students with their projects on ethics and minority health issues. The foreign institutions, research projects proposed, and foreign mentors are described in this website

Profile of the trainees: The program will give undergraduate students priority by selecting approximately 75% undergraduate students as participants per year. It is strongly preferred that all undergraduate participants have completed at least two years of coursework in a major related to biomedical science, a minimum GPA of 3.0, and have demonstrated evidence of exceptional scientific research interest and talent, such as previous undergraduate research experience. Approximately 25% of the student participants may be graduate or health professions students in each budget.

During the trainee selection process priority will be given to students who are interested in research pertinent to reducing and/or eliminating health disparities. A degree of priority is given to applicants from within the CSU consortium.

A priority of the program is to offer international research training opportunities to qualified undergraduate, graduate and health professions students who are from health disparities populations and/or are underrepresented in basic science, biomedical, clinical or behavioral health research career fields.