The National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine (NLM) awarded Meharry Medical College, Fisk University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center a five-year R25 grant to engage and support diverse undergraduate and graduate students who participate in biomedical informatics and biomedical data science summer research programs.
The five-year, $679,000 award will be shared by Meharry, Fisk and VUMC and will fund the creation of the Biomedical Informatics Ecosystem to Support Talented Diverse Students in Data Science (BEST-DS2).
BEST-DS2 will engage Fisk and Meharry students in a summer research program led by faculty from The School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Fisk, Meharry’s School of Applied Computational Sciences and the Department of Biomedical Informatics at VUMC.
“It is wonderful to join Fisk and VUMC to pursue our shared goal of increasing diversity in biomedical data science and bioinformatics,” said Fortune Mhlanga, PhD, dean of Meharry School of Applied Computational Sciences and principal investigator (PI) for the grant. “BEST-DS2 will play an important role in preparing diverse students for future educational and career opportunities.”
Other PIs for the grant include Lei Qian, PhD, PI for Fisk and Kim Unertl, PhD, PI for VUMC. Todd Gary, PhD, assistant professor, biomedical data science, and director, external research development partnerships, is co-investigator for Meharry.
“The grant will allow us to further develop the relationship between Fisk, Meharry and VUMC in Biomedical Informatics, while supporting biomedical informatics and biomedical data science research experiences for talented Fisk undergraduate and Meharry graduate students,” said Unertl, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at VUMC.