PROJECT SUMMARY The primary goal of the MARC program at UC Santa Cruz is to recruit and prepare underrepresented (UR) students for entry into biomedical PhD programs. This is initially achieved by increasing the rate at which UR undergraduates become involved in cutting-edge research at our institution. An important component of our MARC program is to create a larger community of UR and first-generation-in-college students who identify as biomedical researchers and who help promote each other towards PhD-level graduate training. Until this year, this community at UCSC included the 14 MARC scholars and the 23 undergraduates supported by the IMSD program. As the IMSD undergraduate program has ceased and IMSD graduate training transitioned to a T32 program, we are requesting a total of 26 slots for the MARC program to allow us to maintain the core of this larger community of undergraduate STEM Diversity scientists. The aims of this training program proposal are to: 1 - develop a program for a larger MARC cohort of 26 students that fuses the strongest components of our current MARC and IMSD programs. This program will incorporate recruitment, rigorous laboratory training, placement with faculty, and professional development. The challenges will be in how to scale up from the current 14 MARC trainees, however there are important lessons from the success of our IMSD program. The director of that program, Prof. Melissa Jurica, has joined MARC as co-PD so that best practices that she developed working with the larger IMSD undergraduate cohort can be incorporated. 2 - ensure that 100% of graduating MARC fellows develop strong independent research skills. We are approaching this challenge from two perspectives. First, we will develop a team approach to ensure adequate measurable progress in student development of research independence. Second, we will launch a program to have all students write an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) application so that they can learn the skills of experimental design and grantsmanship. 3 - ensure that 100% of MARC fellows who are admitted into PhD programs are capable of persisting through to completion. We are developing a program to prepare students for the new types of social and professional challenges they will face in graduate school. MARC students will make contact with our alumni mentor network and from them learn the social and professional challenges to anticipate in their new environment. The members of the MARC fellow's mentoring team and alumni network will remain available after graduation to provide them with personalized mentoring and coaching as needed.