# Expanding the Genomics Education Partnership: Regional Mentoring and Training Networks to Diversify Bioinformatics Education and Research

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN TUSCALOOSA · 2023 · $176,030

## Abstract

Project Summary
The Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) is a nationwide faculty-driven collaboration that,
through training, mentorship, and outreach enables a broad range of institutions to introduce
bioinformatics into the undergraduate curriculum. Bioinformatics training extends the teaching of
molecular biology, strengthens students' computer science and math skills, and emphasizes the
power of computational approaches to explore biological systems. Inquiry-driven genomics
research engages students in scientific discovery while maintaining a widely distributed network
of teacher-scientists proficient in cutting edge experimental techniques. To date the GEP has
trained hundreds of faculty and impacted thousands of undergraduates. A majority of
participating faculty and students are women, and a third of GEP participant institutions are
minority-serving. From the start, the GEP has sought to:
 1. Introduce bioinformatics into the undergraduate curriculum through research
 2. Create a scalable system to tackle big projects with many students working in parallel
 3. Model “team science” through collaboration of a widely dispersed team
 4. Publish results in the scientific literature with faculty and student authors co-authors
 5. Publish assessment results to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning.
The GEP engages undergraduates in meaningful genomics research regardless of the
selectivity, location, or research focus of their institution, as supported by our published
assessments of education outcomes. This IPERT proposal will further enhance the GEP's
commitment to inclusive training of the scientific workforce. Specific Aim 1 will develop regional
nodes to recruit, train, and mentor inclusive local communities of faculty and students engaged
in genomics teaching and research. New faculty recruitment locally and at equity-promoting
national STEM conferences will focus on institutions that serve students from underrepresented
groups. Regional symposia will enable undergraduate students' direct dissemination of their
research and participation in the scientific community. Specific Aim 2 will broaden the GEP's
scientific scope, capacity, and dissemination by creating a new investigator-initiated,
undergraduate-powered gene annotation workflow, with an associated genomics curriculum,
that will enable community annotation projects for any eukaryotic genome, driving scalable team
science approaches to novel and emerging genomics questions. This new platform incorporates
rapid open-access micropublication of gene reports by undergraduate authors, further engaging
students in their science.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10596505
- **Project number:** 5R25GM130517-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA IN TUSCALOOSA
- **Principal Investigator:** DOUGLAS LEE CHALKER
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $176,030
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-04-15 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10596505

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10596505, Expanding the Genomics Education Partnership: Regional Mentoring and Training Networks to Diversify Bioinformatics Education and Research (5R25GM130517-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10596505. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*