SureGM

SURE-GM is a unique opportunity for undergraduate students to train and engage in genetic and genomic research, developed by The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville.

SURE-GM (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience in Genomic Medicine) is UAB’s NIH/NHGRI R25-funded summer program for outstanding undergraduates attending universities in the state of Alabama who want to explore the potential of a career as a scientific investigator in the fields of genetics and genomics. This summer program is a partnership with HudsonAlpha and UAB, where students will spend their summers conducting research at UAB.

Training Program

SURE-GM Two will begin June 5, 2023, at University of Alabama at Birmingham and accept 7 scholars into the summer program. This immersive, 8-week, full-time internship will provide trainees with valuable experience in genetics and genomics.

Trainees will gain the following skills and experience:

Foundational knowledge in genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics
Training in fundamental research skills
Clinical shadowing opportunity
Personal assessment and discussion of qualitative and quantitative skills to be used as the basis for an individualized development plan
Mentorship by a PhD student or fellow (or PI in some cases) on a summer research project in the area of genetics and genomics
Poster presentation at UAB Research Expo on their summer research
Counseling and support in applying to graduate and/or professional school

Trainees will also participate in structured activities such as book and journal clubs, seminars, personal and professional development, and networking events while gaining increased awareness of the clinical applications of genomic information.

Eligibility

This program is designed for scholars with a strong interest in pursuing graduate school (PhD or MD/PhD) and biomedical research.

To be eligible for SURE-GM, students must:

be a rising junior with a minimum GPA of 3.0
be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident
be a member of an underrepresented racial or ethnic population in biomedical/behavioral research (see definition below)

Eligibility for entry into the program is based on the requirements outlined in the R25 Initiative to Maximize Research Education in Genomics: Diversity Action Plan (PAR-16-345): this program supports educational activities that enhance the diversity of the biomedical, behavioral and clinical research workforce in genomics. This funding opportunity announcement seeks to expose underrepresented students at the undergraduate, post baccalaureate and graduate levels to the foundational sciences relevant to genomics to enable them to pursue careers that span all areas of interest to NHGRI—genome sciences, genomic medicine and genomics and society.

Nationally, racial and ethnic groups who have been found to be underrepresented in biomedical/behavioral research include, but are not limited to, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives/Native Hawaiians, and citizens of the U.S. Pacific Islands.

Financial Support

During the training period, students will receive a stipend of $4,000/8-week summer experience. Housing will be provided each summer in shared university dorms with kitchens and private bedrooms.

Mentors

Name: Aslibekyan, Stella
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Epidemiology
Research Interest: Epidemiologic study design, integrating epigenetic data with other –omic and phenotypic data in the context of chronic disease

Name: Ballinger, Scott W
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Pathology
Research Interest: Mitochondrial genetics, damage, and dysfunction in cardiovascular disease development and susceptibility
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/diabetes/genetics/72-scott-ballinger

Name: Barsh, Gregory
Degree: MD, PhD
Rank: Adjunct Professor/ Faculty Investigator
Primary Department or Program: Genetics; HudsonAlpha Institute
Research Interest: Genetic architecture of morphologic variation
Lab: http://hudsonalpha.org/faculty/greg-barsh

Name: Bedwell, David
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Microbiology
Research Interest: Development of nonsense suppression therapies to treat genetic diseases caused by premature translation termination codons
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/biochem/faculty/bedwell

Name: Bhatia, Smita
Degree: MD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Pediatric – Hematology-Oncology
Research Interest: cancer outcomes, cancer survivors, disparity in cancer outcomes
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/icos/members/smita-bhatia

Name: Brown, Elizabeth E
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Pathology
Research Interest: Molecular and genetic epidemiology of immune-mediated clinical phenotypes

Name: Chang, Chenbei
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB)
Research Interest: Roles of growth factors and transcription factors in early vertebrate embryogenesis

Name: Chen, Jake
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Systems Biology, data mining, advanced visual analytics for complex human disease applications

Name: Chong, Zechen
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Genomics, bioinformatics, structural variations, genomic algorithms
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/genetics/chong-lab

Name: Cimino, James
Degree: MD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Medicine
Research Interest: Informatics; improving clinical decision making and health data capture

Name: Cortes, Rodriguez, Constanza
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB)
Research Interest: Aging, Alzheimer’s disease, brain aging, synaptic plasticity, skeletal muscle, metabolism, exercise, autophagy, proteostasis
Lab: https://sites.uab.edu/cjcortes/people/

Name: Cooper, Gregory
Degree: PhD
Rank: Adjunct Professor/ Faculty Investigator
Primary Department or Program: Genetics; HudsonAlpha Institute
Research Interest: Functional genomics and comparative sequence analysis to identify disease-causing mutations
Lab: http://hudsonalpha.org/faculty/greg-cooper

Name: Cron, Randy
Degree: MD, PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Pediatrics
Research Interest: Genetic defects in lymphocyte cytolysis in macrophage activation syndrome
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/immunology/faculty/81-cron

Name: Crossman, David
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Bioinformatic analyses of genomic and proteomic data sets

Name: Day, Jeremy
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Neurobiology
Research Interest: Activity-dependent epigenetic regulation in neurons; epigenomic and transcriptomics of defined brain circuits
Lab: http://day-lab.org/

Name: Edmonds, Mick
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Cancer genetics

Name: Fouad, Mona
Degree: MD
Rank: Professor and Sr. Associate Dean
Primary Department or Program: Preventive Medicine
Research Interest: Elimination of disparities in cancer morbidity and mortality in woman and minorities
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/diabetes/epidemiology/105-mona-fouad

Name: Hartman, John L IV
Degree: MD
Rank: Assoc Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Gene-gene, gene-environment and genedrug interaction in phenotypic expression and disease
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/genetics/hartman-laboratory

Name: Hjelmeland, Anita
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Cell, Integrative and Dev. Biology
Research Interest: Targeting brain tumor initiating cells and the tumor microenvironment

Name: Irvin, Ryan
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Epidemiology
Research Interest: Pharmacogenetics of antihypertensive

Name: Kesterson, Robert
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Hypothalamic control of feeding behavior

Name: Kimberly, Robert
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Immunology and Rheumatology
Research Interest: Genetic architecture of risk for autoimmune disease; pharmacogenomics of responses to therapeutic monoclonal antibodies

Name: Klug, Christopher
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Microbiology
Research Interest: Hematopoietic stem cell biology, acute leukemia, and pancreatic cancer
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/microbiology/research/programs/cancer/faculty-projects

Name: Korf, Bruce
Degree: MD, PhD
Rank: Professor and Chairman
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Mutation-guided therapeutics; genetics and genomics education, integration of genetics into medical practice

Name: Lasseigne, Brittany
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB)
Research Interest: Bioinformatics, Genomics
Lab: www.lasseigne.org

Name: Lamb, Neil
Degree: PhD
Rank: Adjunct Professor / Faculty Investigator
Primary Department or Program: Genetics/ HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
Research Interest: Creates innovative teacher training, student experiences, public enrichment, classroom kits and digital resources that re-shape how science education is delivered.
Lab: http://hudsonalpha.org/faculty/neil-lamb

Name: Leftkowitz, Elliot J
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Microbiology
Research Interest: Utilizing computational tools and bioinformatics techniques to better understand microbial genomics and evolution

Name: Leier, Andre
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Computational biomedicine, disease modelling, membrane biophysics, bioinformatics

Name: Levy, Shawn
Degree: PhD
Rank: Adjunct Professor / Faculty Investigator
Primary Department or Program: Genetics; HudsonAlpha Institute
Research Interest: Technology development and automation; informatics, and genomic variation

Name: Limdi, Nita
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Neurology
Research Interest: Define the influences of genomic and environmental factors on Warfarin dose; cardiovascular epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology

Name: Liu, Gang
Degree: PhD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Med Pulmonary / Allergy / Critical Care
Research Interest: Roles of non-coding RNAs 9ncRNAs) in pulmonary inflammation, injury, and repair

Name: Lubin, Farah
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Neurobiology
Research Interest: Epigenetic regulation of memory and its disorders
Lab: http://www.lubinlab.com

Name: Marquez-Lago, Tatiana
Degree: PhD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Translational systems biology (customized predictive models and algorithms), gene expression, and bio-engineering
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/genetics/marquez-lago-laboratory

Name: May, Tom
Degree: PhD
Rank: Faculty Investigator
Primary Department or Program: Genetics; HudsonAlpha Institute
Research Interest: Researches issues at the intersection of medicine, public health, and moral / social / political philosophy
Lab: https://hudsonalpha.org/faculty/thomas-may

Name: Might, Matthew
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Personalized Medicine Institute
Research Interest: Static analysis, compilers, functional programming, cybersecurity, information security, optimization, medical robotics, parallelism, high-performance computing, scripting languages, dynamic languages and genetics
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pmi/matt-might

Name: Myers, Richard
Degree: PhD
Rank: Adjunct Professor/ Director
Primary Department or Program: Genetics; HudsonAlpha Institute
Research Interest: Genomic and genetic analyses of human traits and diseases
Lab: http://hudsonalpha.org/faculty/richard-myers

Name: Nakano, Mariko
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Medical Education
Research Interest: Ethics, moral philosophy, bioethics

Name: Ojesina, Akinyemi I
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Epidemiology
Research Interest: Translational genomics, integrative molecular epidemiology, oncology, infectious diseases, global health

Name: Parant, John
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Pharmacology and Toxicology
Research Interest: Impact of genomic instability on human disease
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/pharmacology/faculty/parant

Name: Payami, Haydeh
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Neurology
Research Interest: Genome-wide gene-environmental interaction studies in neurodegenerative disorders
Lab: https://labs.uab.edu/hpayami/

Name: Rokosh, Gregg
Degree: PhD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Cardiology
Research Interest: G-protein coupled receptor signal transduction and cardiovascular function

Name: Shreshta, Sadeep
Degree: PhD, MHS, MS
Rank: Assoc Professor
Primary Department or Program: Epidemiology
Research Interest: Epidemiology, infectogenomics, vaccinogenomics, pharmacogenetics, and immunogenetics

Name: Singh, Keshav
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Genetics of mitochondrial energy metabolism; roles of mitochondria in aging, energetics, oncogenesis, and other diseases
Lab: http://mitochondria.org

Name: Standaert, David G
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor / Chairman
Primary Department or Program: Neurology
Research Interest: Evaluation of novel therapeutics, genetic and genomic studies, and identification of biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases
Lab: https://labs.uab.edu/dstandaert/

Name: Sudarshan, Sunil
Degree: MD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Nephrology
Research Interest: Understanding the molecular basis of renal cancer
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/urology/faculty-temp/sudarshan

Name: Thyme, Summer
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Neurobiology
Research Interest: Complex neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases.
Lab: https://www.thymelab.org/summer-thyme

Name: Tita, Alan
Degree: MD, PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: OB/GYN – Maternal & Fetal Medicine
Research Interest: Medical and obstetric complications of pregnancy, Perinatal infections and preterm labor, Reproductive epidemiology and global health.
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/obgyn/divisions/maternal-fetal-medicine/mfm-faculty/alan-tita

Name: Tiwari, Hemant
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Biostatistics
Research Interest: GWAS, structural variations and epigenetics, pharmacogenetics / pharmacogenomics, exome sequencing, bioinformatics, and metabolomics

Name: Tollefsbol, Trygve
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor
Primary Department or Program: Biology
Research Interest: Cancer and aging epigenetics; modifications of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/cas/biology/people/faculty/trygve-tollefsbol

Name: Wallis, Deeann
Degree: PhD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Neurofibromatosis, Drug discovery, Genetics

Name: Wang, Lizhong
Degree: PhD
Rank: Asst. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Genetics
Research Interest: Identification of cancer-causing genes, targets, and pathways

Name: Wende, Adam
Degree: PhD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Molecular & Cellular Pathology
Research Interest: Diabetes, Hypertension, Genetics, Metabolism
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/diabetes/faculty/faculty-a-z/23-faculty/faculty-bios/260-adam-r-wende-phd

Name: Worthey, Elizabeth
Degree: PhD
Rank: Associate Professor
Primary Department or Program: Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
Research Interest: Development and application of omic, informatic, and data science-based methods and technologies
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/peds/faculty/hematology-oncology/faculty/2128-worthey-elizabeth-ph-d

Name: Yang, ShihHsin
Degree: MD
Rank: Assoc. Professor
Primary Department or Program: Medicine
Research Interest: Identification of new cancer biomarkers to inform and guide therapy in medicine approach
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/radonc/faculty/yang

Name: Yoder, Bradley
Degree: PhD
Rank: Professor/Chair
Primary Department or Program: Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB)
Research Interest: Functional genomics, ciliary signaling, cystic kidney disorders, and development
Lab: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/diabetes/faculty/faculty-bios/230-bradley-yoder

Apply

Applications will be accepted each year for a summer cohort beginning in 2019 and ending in 2022. Four cohorts of 12 trainees each will be selected to participate in a two-year experience. The SURE-GM Scholar application can be accessed by going to: https://www.uab.edu/medicine/physci/undergraduate-student-opportunities/uab-sure-gm-summer-undergraduate-research-experience-in-genomic-medicine

Location

University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)

Contact Us

Nikki Mertz, M.S.
Workforce Development Specialist
HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
[email protected]

Lauren Hicks
Program Manager II
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
[email protected]