Newswise — STONY BROOK, NY, February 28, 2014 -- Stony Brook University's Daniel Moloney, Ph.D. (Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology) has been awarded a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. He and Jennie Williams, Ph.D. (Departments of Medicine and Preventive Medicine) will co-direct the Bridges to the Baccalaureate program called BioPREP (Biology Partnership in Research and Education Program) at Stony Brook University, the goal for which is to educate, train and attract academically strong community college students from underrepresented populations to careers in biomedical sciences and research.

Each year, a dozen underrepresented minority students from Nassau and Suffolk County Community Colleges will have the opportunity to conduct biomedical research at Stony Brook University for ten weeks during the summer and present their research at a national research conference. Stony Brook's first cohort of students will be selected in March and will begin training on campus in May 2014.

BioPREP has been a highly successful program at Stony Brook University for the past two decades. R. David Bynum, Ph.D., (Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology) served as the Program Director from 1994 to 2006. (David is the founding director of CESAME at Stony Brook, and received a Public Service Award in January from the Suffolk County Martin Luther King Jr. Commission). Since its inception, more than 400 community college students have participated in the program. Eighty percent of BioPREP participants pursue and earn a bachelor degree in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) field, and more than one-third of participants pursue advanced graduate degrees.

BioPREP recently heard from 2002 participant, Carlos Peñaloza, Ph.D., who expressed gratitude to have been a part of BioPREP and how it influenced his educational and career path. “I was also exposed to a great deal of opportunities that ultimately guided my path in academia.”

Dr. Peñaloza is now serving as Dean of Health Sciences and Chair of Healthcare Administration at Briarcliffe College.

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