BP-ENDURE: Brooklyn Neural NETS (Neuroscience Education and Training for Scientists)

Brooklyn College (BC) of City University of New York (CUNY), State University of New York Downstate Medical Center (Downstate), and Medgar Evers College (MEC) of CUNY are located within a few miles of each other in the Borough of Brooklyn which has a population of over 2.6 million. Our institutions will partner to develop a neuroscience-focused educational and research agenda ranging from basic neural processes to cognitive and behavioral neuroscience, including the introduction of Fellows to public health issues related to neurological health and disease. Our program, BP-ENDURE: Brooklyn Neural NETS (Neuroscience Education and Training for Scientists) or B-NETS, is intended to prepare well-qualified juniors and seniors who are interested in careers in the neurosciences requiring PhD or MD/PhD degrees. Such individuals will both increase the number of researchers in neuroscience and contribute research findings that can help to address chronic neurological conditions represented where our students live and study. Working as a tightly-knit consortium and exploiting prior successful cross-institution collaborations, B-NETS will have the experience, scientific expertise, assessed institutional need, and motivation to develop a highly effective BP-ENDURE program for upper division undergraduate students that reside throughout Brooklyn and greater New York City area. The proposed B-NETS program will meet the goal of developing neuroscience research education programs by creating a full neuroscience major at BC and an expanded neuroscience curriculum at MEC. The senior administration of all three B-NETS partner institutions has prioritized neuroscience training programs and fully supports the B-NETS program. Many of our undergraduates express the goal of becoming college faculty and serving as research mentors for other undergraduates – a vital pipeline to increase training of future faculty. Innovative aspects of the B-NETS program include the blending of basic neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, community-engaged research and an outstanding depth in neuroscience research to develop a new cohort of neuroscience researchers.