High School and Undergraduate Programs 

The High School Clinical Scholars Program introduces underserved minority students to clinical research to encourage them to enter careers in biomedical science research. The program started in 2001 and has been highly successful. All former students who participated in a survey reported they had gone on to college—75% of them to UCLA—and half said they had engaged in research as undergraduate or graduate students.

Long Beach Polytechnic High School currently participates in this program. With donor support, CTSI will expand to other local high schools that educate underserved minority students.

Students with an interest in biomedical research enroll in a semester-long, for-credit honors program in which they receive d instruction in experimental design, patient safety and ethics; and mentored research at one of the CTSI medical-research sites—either UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center or the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. High school seniors taking honors courses or advanced placement courses are eligible to enroll.  The program accepts 10-17 students each year.  The course is 21 weeks long, six hours per week consisting of activities at LB Poly and activities at one of the three medical centers.  Activities at LB Poly include journal club, seminars, and biomedical ethics discussions.The course concludes with student presentations of each project at a poster presentation which is held at Cedars-Sinai.

Read about a High School Clinical Scholars poster session.

The course curriculum is outlined below.

Week	Hospital (3 hours/week)	High School (1 hour/week)
1	Hospital and Library Tour Access to Medline and PubMed	Course Introduction Meet the Program Directors
2	Meet your Mentor Choose a Journal article	Seminar by a GCRC Investigator
3	Experimental Design I	How to Read a Scientific Paper
4	Experimental Design II Spread Sheet Creation	Journal Club
5	Statistical Analytics I Patient Safety	Journal Club
6	Statistical Analysis II Data Safety Monitoring	Seminar by a GCRC Investigator
7	Attend an IRB Meeting	Midterm Exam
8	Attend an Ethics Seminar Ethics Rondtable Discussion	Journal Club
9	Protocol work with Mentor	Journal Club
10	Protocol work with Mentor	Preparing-a-Poster Seminar
11	Protocol Work with Mentor	Protocol Presentation: Team 1
12	Protocol Work with Mentor	Protocol Presentation: Team 2
13	Protocol Work with Mentor	Protocol Presentation: Team 3
14	Poster Assembly with Scientists	Poster Session at High School

A high percentage of students were accepted to the college of their choice and continued to participate in biomedical research as undergraduate and graduate students. Outcomes depicted below are based on survey responses from 42 of 67 total High School Clinical Scholars from 2001-05. (Response rate is 63%.)

For more information please contact:
Program Instructor: Daniel Pilloff at dpilloff@lbschools.net
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center: Debby Peterson at debby.peterson@cshs.org
LABioMed/Harbor UCLA: William Stringer, MD at wstringer@lundquist.org
UCLA Westwood: Lisa Chan at lchan@mednet.ucla.edu

The CTSI supports the following undergraduate opportunities:

UCLA Undergraduate Science Journal - an annual print publication which showcases research and review articles written by UCLA students. From start to finish, journal production is led by an undergraduate staff consisting of reviewers, editors, and layout editors. All journal articles are peer reviewed and edited by undergraduates selected from diverse science backgrounds.

Each year, USJ staff members are honored with a certificate awarded by Vice Provost Judith Smith at an annual banquet. In addition, Executive Board members and the most outstanding research and review articles also receive the Vice Provost Award of Excellence.

Undergraduate Research Poster Day - Powell Undergraduate Research Week showcases and celebrates student research in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Open to all UCLA undergraduates engaged in humanities, arts, and social sciences research, the week provides opportunities for students to present their research to the campus and broader community. Undergraduate Research Week also includes Research Poster Day, sponsored in part by the CTSI, for students in the life sciences, physical sciences. and engineering.

If you are interested in browsing through a past issue of the UCLA Undergraduate Science Journal, several copies are available at the UCLA College and Bio-Med libraries, the Honors Office, the Pre-Professional Advising Office, and the offices of the undergraduate science counselors. A sampling of articles from previous editions is below.

Research Articles

Characterizing the Karyophilic Property of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1) Integrase

Enhancing the Detection of Urinary Tract Infections Using Two-Phase Aqueous Micellar Systems

Review Articles

The Many Faces of Cholesterol: How Modifications in LDL and HDL Alter Their Potential to Promote or Prevent Atherosclerosis

The Competitive Nature of Declarative and Nondeclarative Memory Systems: Converging Evidence from Animal and Human Brain Studies

UCLA's Undergraduate Research Week showcases and celebrates student research in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Open to all UCLA undergraduates engaged in humanities, arts, and social sciences research, the week provides opportunities for students to present their research to the campus and broader community. Undergraduate Research Week also includes Research Poster Day for students in the life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. Poster sessions are sponsored by the CTSI, and CTSI-RAP students present posters on their undergraduate research at the sessions (see posters presented by CTSI-RAP students).

Website: http://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/

Student editors: usjucla@gmail.com

Advisor: Dr. Tama Hasson
Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research
Director, Undergraduate Research Center – Sciences
Adjunct Associate Professor, Integrative Biology & Physiology Department
thasson@college.ucla.edu

The programs listed below are not sponsored by the CTSI. They are listed here for informational purposes.

NIH STEP-UP Program at UCLA
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health is the sponsor for the STEP-UP Program. The program provides an in-depth, mentored health sciences immersion experience each summer to 25 promising underrepresented high school students who are committed to a career in NIDDK mission areas, including diabetes, endocrinology, metabolism, nutrition, obesity, and digestive, urologic, kidney, and hematologic diseases. The biomedical science research experience is reinforced by an ongoing year round mentoring program to the students from around the nation who otherwise would likely not have access to a promising career path in the sciences.   

CDU Project STRIDE
Project STRIDE will provide an in-depth health science immersion experience to underrepresented high school students. The ten-week clinical research program requires students to work full-time with an assigned mentor on a research project of their interest. Each student writes an abstract on their project, creates a poster and gives a presentation at a Research Day. Participants receive a stipend for their involvement.
All CDU pipeline programs can viewed here.   

Lundquist/Harbor-UCLA Summer Fellowship Program
The Summer Fellowship Program is for outstanding high school seniors to work in a scientific and medical research environment so they can gain firsthand experience in biomedical research. As part of Lundquist/Harbor-UCLA’s Summer Fellowship Program, just a handful of students are chosen each year by a committee consisting of Lundquist/Harbor-UCLA Medical Center faculty members for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Cedars-Sinai High School Outreach Program
This motivational program is open to all Los Angeles-area high school students and is designed to offer a basic understanding of stem cell research. The program is composed of a research week, research lectures and a California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM)-funded summer research internship called the Summer Program to Accelerate Regenerative Medicine Knowledge (SPARK) Program.

CityLab at UCLA
CityLab at UCLA is a science educational program run by UCLA undergraduate and graduate students to introduce high school students in the Los Angeles area to the rapidly developing world of biotechnology though “hands on” laboratory experience.

UCLA Brain Research Institute (BRI)
The BRI offers a number of programs for K-12 students to learn about neuroscience.

UCLA Pre-College Science Education Program
The Pre-College Science Education Program is for gifted but educationally disadvantaged high school students to scientific research and potential careers in the health sciences.

The programs listed below are not sponsored by the CTSI. They are listed here for informational purposes.

Lundquist/Harbor-UCLA U*Star & RISE Programs
The Minority Access to Research Centers (MARC) Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (U*STAR) Program was created by the National Institutes of Health-National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to increase the number of biomedical and behavioral scientists particularly from underrepresented groups. The MARC program is designed to successfully prepare students for Ph.D. programs in biomedical sciences, which include biology, chemistry, psychology, mathematics, and computer science.
The Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program – a Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) program – was designed to enhance the research environment at minority-serving institutions, with an overall goal to increase the interest, skills, and competitiveness of students and faculty in pursuit of careers in biomedical research. RISE participants include faculty and students who have the opportunity to conduct research at various institutions, one of which is Lundquist/Harbor-UCLA.

UCLA PREP
UCLA PREP is a seven-week program designed to provide premedical and predental students from disadvantaged backgrounds with a means of strengthening their ability and readiness to study medicine or dentistry.

UCLA BRI SURE
BRI-SURE Pathway is an 8-week, intensive summer research- training program for exceptional undergraduate students interested in pursuing research careers in Neuroscience or Physiology.