The Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh -Cardiology, Hematology and Pulmonology Summer Research Internship Program (CHP2-SRIP)

The Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh-Cardiology, Hematology and Pulmonology Summer Research Internship Program (CHP2-SRIP) will be the premier undergraduate research experience in the study of pediatric heart, lung and blood diseases. Heart, lung and blood ailments affect both the adult and pediatric communities at high rates and key studies are needed to identify novel therapeutics to mitigate many of these diseases. Thus, there is a large unmet need to train biomedical researchers to develop new and effective treatments and cures for heart, lung and blood diseases, particularly those affecting pediatric populations. UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) is well positioned to mentor, train, and motivate undergraduate students to become MD and/or PhD scientists focused on research and much-needed development of new treatments for cardiac, hematological and pulmonary disorders. This program will allow students to perform research for an 8-week period over the summer as part of the CHP2-SRIP. The pool of undergraduates will come from a wide range of Universities around the country and US districts. This program will be administered by the Department of Pediatrics and include faculty from its pediatric cardiology, pulmonology and hematology/oncology divisions; the Departments of Developmental Biology, Pathology, and Critical Care; and the School of Public Health. Members of the training faculty will provide a weekly one-hour didactic session on a NHLBI topic followed by a 30-minute discussion on a pertinent paper and a discussion about career options as a heart, lung or blood/vascular researcher. Furthermore, we will provide research training under the mentorship of world-class NHLBI researchers. A multimedia platform has been developed specifically for this program and will act as an interface for past, current and future students. CHP2-SRIP students will be matched with one of the training faculty to pursue a research project. Given the breadth of the training faculty research interests, students will have the opportunity to work on a laboratory-based project or a patient-oriented research project. At the end of the 8 weeks, the students will present their work as an oral presentation. Upon completion of this summer program the students will have had exposure to a wide array of NHLBI-based research topics, to nationally respected clinician-scientists and PhD scientists. Given that decisions about a specialty in medicine and/or research focus often happen in early stages of training, the intent of this program is to increase the number of trainees that will eventually become physician-scientists or PhD scientists in these fields.