BD4ISU: Big Data for Indiana State University

Project Summary Although the advent of biomedical big data has produced opportunities for researchers to study and reveal genetic patterns with the potential for curing human health related diseases, there is a lack of programs focused on the unique needs and continuous training of underrepresented researchers, both students and faculty/staff, in big data science and its applications to biomedical research. Educating underrepresented groups for wealth NIH biomedical big data is important to central Indiana and to the nation. To meet this need, in partnership with The Ohio State University (OSU) we propose to develop a program (BD4ISU) for training underrepresented undergraduate students at Indiana State University (ISU) with the knowledge of big data computation and analysis in biomedical research. The program is also designed to enhance the ISU?s faculty/staff knowledge base in big data science and extend their didactic and professional skills in biomedical research by injecting novel instructional methods. The BD4ISU program has three specific aims. The first aim is to recruit and prepare underrepresented students for research careers in Biomedical Big Data Science. Three cohorts of five selected underrepresented students will be placed into a four-year math/data science BS program with an emphasis in biomedical data science to learn biomedical data knowledge by taking classes during academic years and attending summer workshops. The second aim is to offer hands-on research experience on biomedical big data manipulation for underrepresented students. Students will participate in a 10-week research- intensive summer program on the OSU campus and will participate research in faculty?s labs. Through OSU/ISU faculty mentored, yet student-oriented research experience, students will learn hands-on skills in manipulating and analyzing biomedical big data. The third aim is to enhance and expand big data knowledge to ISU faculty/staff. ISU faculty/staff will be guided under the mentorship of OSU faculty to create innovative and/or improve existing big data based curricula to better train students for research in biomedical data science. It is the ultimate goal of BD4ISU program to build a path of underrepresented students into graduate studies and career settlement in the biomedical research field.