The Biomedical Informatics and Behavioral Sciences (BIBS) Summer Research Program

The proposed Biomedical Informatics and Behavioral Sciences (BIBS) Summer Research Program seeks to encourage talented students to pursue oral health research careers. In 2000, Oral Health in America: A report of the Surgeon General reframed oral diseases as a bona fide public health issue. Our central hypothesis is twofold: too few health professionals are engaged in oral health and dental services research; and insufficient research training in their ranks hampers the study of oral health diseases. To address this supposition, the Texas A&M University (TAMU) College of Dentistry (COD) will develop a new summer program for undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students interested in dentistry, dental students with a master’s degree, or dental residents with a master’s degree, particularly the Master of Public Health degree. This innovative program will leverage the COD’s existing summer programming however, BIBS will be a first-time collaboration among the TAMU Center for Statistical Bioinformatics, and the TAMU Department of Public Health Sciences. Having faculty from three complementary health research specialties will add perspective for students. In this proposal, seven talented trainees per summer will participate in a comprehensive 9-week program. The first six weeks will consist of coursework in biomedical informatics and behavioral sciences, in which trainees will learn programming, statistics, tools for analyzing large data sets, and codes specific to dental procedures and dental public health. At the start of the program, each trainee will be paired with a mentor. Working together, they will develop a tailored mentorship plan and conduct a research project. At the end of the program, trainees will present their projects and results in a newly established “BIBS Summer Research Conference.”