# ESTEEMED Honors Research Training at UTSA

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SAN ANTONIO · 2021 · $279,787

## Abstract

The U.S. needs a strong, diverse workforce of PhD-level scientists and engineers to meet emerging challenges
in healthcare. The long term goal of the UTSA ESTEEMED Program is to cultivate an exceptional cohort of
minority, disadvantaged, or disabled freshmen students, currently underrepresented (UR) in the biosciences, to
develop as scientists and leaders who rise to meet these emerging challenges. UTSA is an excellent recruiting
and training ground for these future scientists, with a large UR population and laboratories that perform high
quality biomedical research and embrace undergraduate (UG) researchers. UTSA also has a high-performing
NIH-funded MARC U*STAR Honors Research Training Program, active since 1980, into which the ESTEEMED
trainees can transition when they become juniors. The proposed ESTEEMED program requests 7 training
positions in its first year and 14 thereafter, to maintain a balanced number of freshman and sophomore trainees.
The trainees will be recruited from nine majors in the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology,
and Biomedical Engineering. We hypothesize that we can transform these incoming UR freshmen into future
world-class scientists through accomplishment of the following Specific Aims: #1 support academic achievement;
#2 support growth as a scientist and science communicator; #3 instruct trainees about career options and diverse
fields, with a focus on biomedical computation; and #4 promote leadership development and address known
barriers to UG and doctoral degree attainment in UR populations. The many activities designed to achieve these
Aims will be introduced in a pre-Freshman Bridge Program, extend throughout all semesters of the freshman
and sophomore years, and include two full-time summer research programs in consecutive summers, one at
UTSA and the next at a nationally ranked university or medical center. The trainees will face challenges that
continuously spur their personal and professional growth. For example, their immersion in research will progress
from lab visits, to rotations, to research at UTSA, to research in a different institution in a new city. The success
of the program will be measured in GPA outcomes; research presentations and publications; admission into
MARC; degree completion; admission into doctoral training; and long term career outcomes, as well as
qualitatively reported increases in confidence or integration into science culture. Unique program features include
a UTSA-supported “extra” summer program, and early completion of the first semester of MARC training during
this summer program, to better align the ESTEEMED and MARC training sequences. Also, with depression
rampant in graduate student populations, ESTEEMED trainees will complete biofeedback training to improve
their resistance to stress. Program outcomes will include: at least 95% of trainees will complete their degree,
50% will progress to the MARC and 75% of MARC matriculants will pursue a PhD; all seco...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10252783
- **Project number:** 5R25EB027605-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SAN ANTONIO
- **Principal Investigator:** Gail Patricia Taylor
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $279,787
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-23 → 2024-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10252783

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10252783, ESTEEMED Honors Research Training at UTSA (5R25EB027605-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10252783. Licensed CC0.

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