PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders continue to have a major impact on global health. Physician scientists have an important role in addressing these disorders through research whose findings can advance development of new diagnostic, treatment, and prevention strategies. However, there is a decreasing number of physician scientists in these clinical fields to meet this need. Strategies to recruit, train, and retain the next generation of physician scientists to address heart, lung, and blood concerns are needed. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is committed to training and retaining a pipeline of physician scientists and has established a Physician Scientist Development Office (PSDO) that provides support and resources for this pipeline, which includes medical students. UAB’s 41-year long NHLBI T35-funded program has been highly successful in providing mentored research and training for medical students. The goal of this renewal submission is to continue to provide medical students with mentored research experiences concentrated in heart, lung, and/or blood fields and didactics that provide skills and knowledge in translational research and motivation for a career as a physician scientist. This goal will be achieved through three specific aims: Aim 1: Continue to identify and recruit medical students interested in translational-based heart, lung and/or blood research who are diverse by gender, race, and ethnicity. This will be achieved through multiple PSDO-led and co-sponsored activities held in the first year of medical school (MS1). Aim 2: Continue to provide research experiences, mentoring, and research training for medical students to promote curiosity in and motivation for a career involving heart, lung and/or blood research. Each summer, 32 medical students will complete an 8-week program that includes: 1) research experiences in heart, lung, and/or blood fields; 2) mentoring by preceptors with an excellent mentoring track record; 3) translational research training and responsible conduct of research and reproducibility training; 4) other career development activities; and 5) career guidance through interactions with preceptors, the program director (PD), peers and near pears. Aim 3: Maintain continued mentorship and engagement in career development and research-related activities to retain medical students’ interest in and motivation for a physician scientist pathway involving heart, lung, and/or blood research. As seen in program outcome data in this renewal application, the program is very successful, with an increase in: 1) program applications (71% increase since 2014), 2) female and URiM participants (38% increase in females; 58% increase in URiMs), 3) longitudinal research pathway participation (28% rise in year-out research programs); also, there are many publications (for a short-term research experience) and many students continuing in academic medicine post-graduation. The program remai...