A comprehensive UIUC program geared for undergraduate students in the life sciences and fostering community outreach has received a $1.6 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

This grant is part of $91.1 million in 4-year grants awarded by HHMI to 58 universities in 32 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The awardees were selected from 191 proposals made by 205 institutions. This is the third HHMI grant awarded to the UIUC.

"I am very excited and thankful to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for its confidence and support of our on-going program," said Susan Fahrbach, entomologist, neuroscientist, and new director of the UI Hughes Program. "We have an exciting set of programs that have had a broad impact on our campus, our community, the state of Illinois, and the nation."

A major component of the Hughes program is the Undergraduate Research Fellows, which allows freshmen and sophomores to conduct hands-on research in faculty labs. These students are selected from UI life sciences majors and from colleges and institutions where minorities are underrepresented in the life sciences. Since 1993, 311 students have participated in the program, and 130 faculty from 19 units have served as advisors and mentors.

The Hughes Program in Life Sciences also supports:

• The specially designed Calc and ChemPrime summer programs for incoming freshmen. CalcPrime uses a computer-based, highly visual approach to calculus that lets students whose placement scores were below requirements for Math 120 learn at their own pace and see the relevance of mathematics to life sciences. ChemPrime prepares students for introductory chemistry classes.

• The Footlocker Program provides high school science teachers with training, new ideas, workshops, and teaching kits in biotechnology.

• The Prairie Flowers Program provides middle school science teachers throughout central Illinois, primarily in rural areas, with teaching kits, training, and computer networking opportunities to encourage girls and minority students to explore science careers.

• BOAST (Bouchet Outreach Achievement in Science and Technology) is designed to boost the scientific interest of primary and secondary schoolchildren by linking UI engineering and science students with academically at-risk students at Champaign’s Kenwood Elementary School.

For additional information about the program, visit www.life.uiuc.edu/hughes/

Susan Fahrbach

HHMI is a medical research organization whose principal purpose is the pursuit of biomedical research. For more information, see www.hhmi.org/home/.

School of Life Sciences

University of Illinois