VANDERBILT DIGESTIVE DISEASES RESEARCH CENTER (VDDRC) SUPPLEMENT ABSTRACT Increasing diversity is an overarching institutional priority at Vanderbilt. However, underrepresented minority (URM) investigators comprise only 8% of the Vanderbilt Digestive Diseases Research Center (VDDRC) membership; therefore, a long-term VDDRC goal going forward is to have diversity hard-wired in the VDDRC continuum from digestive diseases training to research to clinical care. This process must involve recruitment and retention of URM digestive disease-associated faculty, house staff, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and staff. As such, we are requesting NIDDK Supplemental funds to promote diversity efforts by sponsoring a scientific and career mentoring retreat specifically targeting underrepresented minorities. This effort will be undertaken in conjunction with Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Vanderbilt has a formal alliance with Meharry, one of only three minority medical colleges in the country, bringing together strengths for the benefit of education, patient care, and research. The Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at Meharry, Dr. Smoot, is a Gastroenterologist and he and Dr. Peek are close colleagues and have known each other professionally for over two decades based on their common research interest in H. pylori pathogenesis. For this program, the VDDRC and Meharry will invite 6 successful URM investigators to present a research seminar and host a career mentoring session with URM medical students, residents, fellows and junior faculty drawn from Divisions and Departments represented within the VDDRC and Meharry. This will be coordinated by Dr. Peek and Dr. Coburn, an underrepresented minority VDDRC investigator, along with Dr. Smoot. This program will complement the overarching Diversity initiatives developed at Vanderbilt to create new opportunities that increase diversity across the Vanderbilt community by attracting new investigators from diverse backgrounds to digestive diseases research, promoting new research directions and increasing collaboration and diversity in the research workforce.