RCN-UBE Incubator: Stem Research on Non-model Genomes Network

This project aims to serve the national interest by increasing students' opportunities to participate in scientific research. Participating in research to answer a real-world problem is known to increase a student's persistence in STEM. The science of genomics offers rich opportunities for undergraduate research.

Technological advances are helping to unlock the genomic sequences of a growing number of organisms, including many that are critically important to the economy, human health, and the natural environment. Genome sequence data is accumulating so fast that the main bottleneck to understanding it is a large scientifically educated workforce to analyze the data.

This project will create a network of genome scientists and educators to create opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in scientific research. The emphasis of this network will focus on the genome of the western corn rootworm. The project will provide a matchmaking service to help genome scientists and educators with complementary interests find each other and set up partnerships.

The project will provide resources and guidance to help ensure that the course-based undergraduate research experiences produce both a good education experience for the students and reliable data for the scientists.

This incubator project will set up a network that brings together genome scientists in need of help analyzing their data and instructors seeking research opportunities for their undergraduate students. The project team will implement a series of Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) as modules within existing classes or as standalone classes.

CUREs will be implemented at multiple institutions with diverse populations. Student survey data and student work will be analyzed by the leadership team to inform others in the network of evidence-based best practices and to provide guidance for those creating new CUREs. Student work that meets approved standards will be communicated back to the scientific community.

For example, manually curated gene models will be submitted to NCBI to improve existing genome annotations. The modest infrastructure requirements needed to implement genomics- based CUREs makes them ideal for extending research opportunities to students at institutions with limited capacity to offer lab-based research experiences. Efforts to grow the network during the incubator phase will place a strong emphasis on recruiting members at 2-year institutions, primarily undergraduate institutions and minority serving institutions to maximize the societal benefits of the network.

This project is being jointly funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), Division of Biological Infrastructure, and the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Division of Undergraduate Education as part of their efforts to address the challenges posed in Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action (http://visionandchange.org/finalreport/).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.