The Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative provides awards to undergraduate institutions across the country to implement and study innovative approaches to engaging and retaining students from diverse backgrounds in biomedical research. In 2014, the National Institute of Health (NIH) granted 10 five-year BUILD (Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity) awards. The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) was one of the 10 core institutions to receive the award which led to the formation of the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity: Southwest Consortium of Health-Oriented Education Leaders and Research Scholars (BUILDing Scholars) program. Under the UTEP BUILD award, there are 13 research partners, with UConn being the only academic institution in the Northeast.
The fourth cohort of BUILD Scholars recently completed their summer research experiences and in conclusion of the program, presented their research findings.
The names and final presentations of our BUILD Scholars are as follows:
Isaac Gandara– Lab of Anne Delany- “Evaluating Beta Catenin and Formin-Like 2 RNA as MicroRNA-29 Targets in Osteoclasts”
Diana Moreno– Lab of Leslie Caromile- “Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen Dependent Health Disparities in Prostate Cancer”
Nickolas Ortiz– Lab of Rajkumar Verma- “Role of Kalirin in Post-Stroke Dementia”
Priscilla Parada– Lab of David Steffens- “Susceptibility to Cognitive and Emotional Interference in Late Life Depression”
Margarita Romero– Lab of Carol Pilbeam- “Prostaglandin E2 Regulation of RANKL Driven Serum Amyloid A3 Expression in Bone Marrow Microphages”
