ABSTRACT The goal of the Pittsburgh Undergraduate Research Diversity Program (PURDIP) is to catalyze the training and career development of underrepresented minority undergraduate students in research, to enhance the diversity of the biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce in the mission areas of importance to the NHLBI. This goal will be achieved through the provision of an intensive summer research educational experience in innovative technologies and conceptual paradigms related to heart, lung, blood and sleep-related science at the University of Pittsburgh. The focus of PURDIP is knowledge in Fundamentals of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and Health Disparity, Mentored Research Projects and Learning Skills. Its objective is to help the students discover their passion for research in heart, lung, sleep and blood science, provide hands-on research experience to trainees to help them to better understand the biomedical, behavioral and clinical research profession, and finally to motivate the trainees to continue on to graduate and other health professions careers. Over 70 University of Pittsburgh academic faculty from the broad disciplines of cardiology, hematology/oncology, vascular biology, molecular biology, pharmacology, coagulation and thrombosis, transfusion medicine, regenerative medicine and sleep at the University of Pittsburgh are available to provide a broad array of basic, behavioral, translational and clinical research topics and study patient populations to carry out this project. The program is focused on multiple areas of heart, lung, blood and sleep research including hemolysis-related vascular disorders, sickle cell disease, pulmonary hypertension, cardiac imaging, and cardiovascular health outcomes. Training will incorporate the learning of cutting edge methodologies that is applied to a clinical problem, leading to potentially novel therapeutic approaches or clinical studies in patients. Trainees will be paired up with one clinical investigator and one basic or behavioral investigator to give them a broad perspective on health-related research.