This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The NCRR's Strategic Plan for career development is to "ensure the growth and strength of the Nation's scientific talent base." Congruent with this mission statement, the Gene Center requested and was awarded a special award in the last funding cycle from the RCMI to increase the number of highly qualified American and minority graduate students involved in research at the Gene Center. The plan was to address the criticism of our External Advisory Committee, and NIH reviewers, that the proportion of minority and American students were too low in our graduate student pool. This factor greatly hindered our ability to fulfill our missions of maintaining an outstanding research environment and preparing the next generation of American and minority scientists. It also hampered our efforts to secure institutional pre-doctoral training grants from the NIH. Obtaining such a training grant would help raise our institutional profile and prestige. With the help of this RCMI-funded program, we have made tremendous progress towards our goals, including the recent submission of a competitive NIH training grant application in the field of Neurosciences. With the help of the Gene Center Graduate Research Support program, we are now able to recruit top students into our Ph.D. programs from our Master's programs and summer research program as well as through our outreach activities. It is important to emphasize that many of these students already have extensive lab research experience and publication records. As such, these researchers are in many ways "pre-trained" and immediately begin contributing to our scientific environment and productivity upon joining the Ph.D. program. Our combination of a large number of well funded, competitive research laboratories, and a supportive, diverse, student-oriented environment is very attractive to these researchers, many of whom are returning and/or minority students. By providing the same high level of support that they might obtain at Columbia University, Rockefeller University, New York University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine or Cornell Medical College in New York City, the Gene Center fellowship program removed the major hurdle we faced in effectively recruiting competitive researchers to the Gene Center. We provide support for these student researchers from the administrative budget of our RCMI award. The amount funded by the RCMI is matched 1:1 with institutional funds.