Kyle J. Frantz - US grants

Despite societal trends for drug abuse to occur in adolescents and adults, men and women, basic research on drugs of abuse is seldom conducted with age and gender as independent variables. Despite findings that the psychostimulant, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy), has neurobiological characteristics typical of drugs that alter the reinforcing efficacy of cocaine, the effects of MDMA on cocaine reinforcement have not been investigated. Thus, the overall aim of the present experiments is to examine the significance of age and gender in the long-term neurobehavioral effects of MDMA. The specific aims are as follows: 1) to record serotonin (5HT) and glutamate depletion in the brain of periadolescent and adult, male and female rats, exposed to MDMA; 2) to test the hypothesis that MDMA will increase the reinforcing effects; and 3) to examine neurotransmission following MDMA pre-exposure by recording behavioral responses to pretreatment with 5HT1B, 5HT2C or dopamine D1 receptor agonists before cocaine self- administration, and neurotransmitter levels in the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area before and during cocaine self-administration. Together the proposed experiments will provide information on age and gender differences in 1) drug-related neurotoxicity and behavioral dysfunction; 2) the long-term effects 5HT dysfunction on the reinforcing properties of cocaine; and 3) the effects of 5HT neurotoxicity on monoaminergic interactions in the mesolimbic system. These investigations may provide insight into the etiology of stimulant dependence and may lead to novel pharmacotherapies for psychostimulant addiction.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): [unreadable] [unreadable] The adolescent phase of development is a particularly vulnerable period during which experimentation with drugs reaches a lifetime high, often initiating a problematic trajectory from recreational use to uncontrollable dependence on drugs such as opiates. Although the majority of drug abusers in the U.S. are male, an increasing number of women are drug dependent, and females are 4-5 times more likely than males to abuse opioidergic prescription pain killers. Yet only recently have adolescent and female subjects been tested in research using animal models to explore drug-seeking behavior. Therefore, age- and sex-related differences in vulnerability to drug abuse are unexplained. Moreover, potential risk factors which differentiate between adolescents who initiate the drug dependence trajectory vs. those who do not remain unexplored. Factors contributing to adolescent drug intake are likelly to include prior stress or trauma; adverse neonatal environments clearly increase drug addiction in adulthood. However, the specific impact of neonatal trauma on opiate self-administration in adolescent males and females is not known. Experiments proposed in this application will use behavioral techniques to test these hypotheses: (1) adolescent drug vulnerabilities extend to the reinforcing effects of morphine; (2) neonatal injury via hindpaw injection of an inflammatory agent results in elevated morphine self-administration in both male and female adolescent rats; and (3) that these effects are exacerbated in females. These behavioral effects are hypothesized to be mediated by developmental changes and sexual dimorphisms in the anatomical and functional organization of opioidergic circuits in the brain, which we will test in future experiments using cellular and molecular techniques. Together these studies will provide a biological basis whereby an adverse neonatal environment potentiates adolescent vulnerabilities to drug abuse in males and females. [unreadable] [unreadable]

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Undergraduate students may be attracted to science by exposure to basic laboratory research. A summer research experience as an apprentice in a scientist's laboratory can be effective in this regard, but the pool of willing scientists is often too limited to accommodate large numbers of students in such environments. The proposed project will use a 10-week summer research program based at Georgia State University in Atlanta to test the hypothesis that a collaborative learning experience in a dedicated teaching laboratory will positively affect student outcomes to the same or greater degree than traditional research apprenticeships. Every year for four years, the Research Team will partner with local programs to recruit and admit undergraduate students from institutions nationwide to participate in the study, with focus on students from underrepresented groups (i.e. xxx). Program logistics deemed effective in pilot studies would be replicated in the proposed project, including recruitment, stipends, housing, and transportation. By conducting hypothesis-driven education research, we will fill a critical gap in current knowledge about the effectiveness of interventions intended to interest, motivate, and prepare students for research careers in the biomedical sciences, with particular focus on students from underrepresented groups. In order to test our hypothesis, we will adapt, develop, and/or validate quantitative and qualitative assessment tools. Self-efficacy surveys will reveal student beliefs about their abilities to study science, conduct scientific research, and succeed in science-related careers. Mastery quizzes will probe acquisition of basic science content knowledge and process skills. Laboratory observations, participant and mentor interviews, focus group discussions, and assessment of research presentations will describe how, why, and for which participant subgroups the summer research program is effective. Long-term follow-up will be conducted yearly through 2016 to determine the impact of the research experience on long-term achievement and career decisions, with achievement defined as course grades and standardized pre-professional test scores, and career decisions defined as choice of science-related courses, majors, pre-professional tests, and post-baccalaureate academic or professional positions. By the end of the project, we will have identified components of undergraduate research programs that foster the progress of a diverse student population toward careers in biomedical and behavioral research. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Undergraduate students can be attracted to science by engaging in research. A summer experience as an apprentice in a scientist's laboratory or clinic may be effective in this regard, but short-term research may fail to provide the preparation necessary to progress into PhD programs in fields such as neuroscience. The BP- ENDURE-Atlanta project led by Georgia State University (GSU) in partnership with Agnes Scott College (ASC), Emory University, and Spelman College, will provide a two-year neuroscience research immersion and integration program for students from underrepresented groups. Program evaluation will test the hypothesis that in-depth research training, coupled with an intensive professional development workshop series, will positively affect participants'communication skills and confidence with research abilities, and will increase rates of matriculation into neuroscience PhD programs. Identification of a reliable approach to developing the skills and confidence necessary to progress into PhD programs will enable more students from various backgrounds to pursue their interests in science, and will ultimately increase diversity in the US scientific workforce. Specific Aim 1 is to engage undergraduates from underrepresented groups in research and training, using a two-year program for junior and senior undergraduates that includes five major components: 1) a research immersion in Atlanta's well-established BRAIN summer program;2) a Research Assistantship in the first academic year;3) a Travel Assistantship to conduct research at a partner T32 training program in the second summer;4) a Capstone Research Assistantship during the second academic year;and 5) an intensive professional development workshop series. Specific Aim 2 is to test the hypothesis that this neuroscience research program will positively affect scientific communication skills and confidence with research abilities among undergraduates, thereby raising rates of matriculation into neuroscience PhD programs. By conducting hypothesis-driven science education research, this project will fill a gap in current knowledge about how best to encourage and prepare students to help address biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs, with a focus on students from underrepresented groups. By publishing results in peer-reviewed journals targeting different subpopulations in the scientific community, we will extend beyond the norm of many training programs in terms of contributing to best practices in science education. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The BP-ENDURE-Atlanta Program uses authentic neuroscience research experience coupled with professional development workshops to maximize student outcomes, i.e. scientific communication skills and science self-efficacy, as well as diversity outcomes, i.e. students from underrepresented groups matriculating into PhD programs. Increased diversity in the scientific workforce will ultimately diversify the types of questions posed in scientific research, emphasizing topics related to public health disparities, and broadening interpretations and applications of research results. Program evaluation reveals how best to encourage and prepare students to help address biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs.

The goal of this WIDER planning grant program is to enhance the educational experience of STEM majors at Georgia State University (GSU) by encouraging the faculty to make evidence-based changes in their pedagogy. GSU is notable as a highly diverse campus, with strengths in the STEM disciplines. Four strategies are being employed in this project. First, the current pedagogical knowledge, educational goals, and career motivations of GSU instructors (both tenure track and non-tenure track) are being assessed in order to help the University support the faculty in their efforts to implement pedagogical change. Second, the data "dashboard" needs of instructional faculty are being assessed, in order to create readily accessible quantitative data sets that allow rapid assessment of changes in teaching practices. Third, forums for sharing ideas, expertise and pedagogical help with GSU faculty members via outside mentors are being established. Finally, four Faculty Learning Communities centered on peer-led team learning, the hybrid classroom, training and support of graduate teaching assistants, and integration of science concepts into the mathematics curriculum are being created, to provide sustained engagement and feedback for the reform efforts underway. In all four of these areas, the goal is to nucleate change starting from interdisciplinary groups of faculty with similar pedagogical goals.

The broad goal of this program is to significantly increase GSU's institutional commitment to evidence-based teaching and learning in the STEM disciplines. Increased student engagement should in turn increase both retention and progression toward the degree. Full-time non-tenure track faculty have a significant role in STEM education at GSU and increasingly in the nation as a whole. A detailed study of the pedagogical knowledge, educational goals, and career motivations of these key instructional players is therefore important to all institutions that use a specialized faculty model. A model of a "dashboard" of readily accessible quantitative data of student performance will be of broad interest as the United States seeks to encourage evidence-based pedagogical innovations throughout the STEM disciplines.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Institute On Neuroscience Summer Research Immersion. Engaging outstanding high school students in authentic and rewarding laboratory research may attract them to research careers. An intensive summer research experience provides an ideal environment for students to experience hands-on, inquiry-based science learning, which will likely enhance their content knowledge, technical skills, and confidence in their ability to conduct scientific research (scientific research self-efficacy). In turn, science elf-efficacy predicts intent to persist in science-related academic and career paths. Likewise for high school teachers, participating in summer research may improve knowledge, skills, and teaching efficacy, ultimately affecting commitment to teaching and retention in teaching careers. Moreover, by translating research experiences into inquiry-based learning opportunities for future students, teachers can exponentially increase the distribution of knowledge and skills acquired in a summer program. Thus, we will facilitate integration of students and teachers into neuroscience research teams through our program called ION/Teach. Our first aim is to engage high school students and teachers in an intensive summer research program, called the Institute on Neuroscience & Teaching (ION/Teach). A diverse group of students and teachers will start the summer with a week-long seminar on basic neuroscience concepts and methods, then engage in seven weeks of mentored lab research with active investigators at metro-Atlanta universities. Weekly professional development workshops will focus on topics such as scientific communication, college prep, and ethical conduct of research. Teacher participants will translate their summer research into standards-based lesson plans. The summer research experience will culminate in a research symposium. Our second aim is to use the ION/Teach program as a basis to test the hypothesis that participation in authentic laboratory research can improve externally demonstrable research skills (e.g. neuroscience content knowledge, competency at the bench or in the clinic, and scientific communication), and/or internal constructs associated with success in science or teaching careers (e.g. research or teaching self-efficacy, low science anxiety, science identity). Beyond individual outcomes for participants, the effectiveness of lesson plan development by the teacher participants will be monitored by assessment instruments that probe student learning outcomes in their classrooms. This research will fill a gap in current knowledge about how best to prepare young people to help address current biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs. For teachers, our results will also help identify ways to enhance retention in science classrooms. Ultimately, this project will produce not only students and teachers with research skills and dispositions toward successful careers, but also education research data for dissemination to the international science education community.

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) at Georgia State University (GSU) offers a highly innovative program that will recruit and retain undergraduate students from groups underrepresented in science who will then pursue careers in biomedical sciences. GSU is an ideal institution for an IMSD program as it combines excellence in biomedical and behavioral sciences with a remarkably diverse undergraduate population as well as with GSU's success in training undergraduates from underrepresented minorities. GSU now graduates more African American students than any other non-profit institution of higher learning in the United States. The goal of the proposed IMSD is to combine our existing strengths in biomedical research with the unique success of GSU in educating underrepresented minorities to make it the premier institution in the nation for the education of a highly diverse group of students who will go on to NIH-funded research careers. The objectives of this IMSD program are: (1) to engage high-potential undergraduates from underrepresented groups, recruited from Neuroscience, Biology, Chemistry, and Psychology, in a two-year research immersion and integration program, which includes research during summer as well as academic year activities that will integrate regular coursework with research activities (research semester); (2) to promote survival skills for research careers through an intensive series of professional development workshops and courses in which students will hone their skills in critical thinking, scientific communication, research career planning, and ethics; (3) to create a highly supportive academic and social environment to launch graduate careers in biomedical science by providing instructors with skills to train students from underrepresented groups and help them get entry into PhD programs and by fostering connections with other partner T32 and PREP institutions; and (4) to evaluate progress and identify program, mentor, and trainee dispositions that predict success in biomedical research careers, which we will then use to institutionalize successful program elements beyond the grant period at GSU and, by disseminating and publishing the results of our evaluation, at other institutions.

PROJECT ABSTRACT MARC at Georgia State University (MARC@GSU) will create workforce diversity through honors undergraduates. GSU is the ?right place at the right time? for a new MARC program; our institution offers an unusual combination of ?research intensive institution? with over 50,000 students in a ?minority-majority? population. Yet the institutional culture does not yet support impressive levels of alumni earning PhDs. A strategic thrust of MARC@GSU will be to leverage GSU?s growing number of state-of-the-art interdisciplinary undergraduate programs like B&B (Brains & Behavior), MBD (Molecular Basis of Disease), and IMSD (Initiative for Maximizing Student Development), as well as summer high-school programs like CTY (Catch Them Young) and ION (Institute on Neuroscience), to provide hands-on training, opportunities to cultivate life and professional skills, and gain in-person exposure to career pathways in biomedical and behavioral sciences. MARC will help us reach critical mass of support programs and training funds to change our culture. Out of almost 1,000 MARC-eligible undergraduates in biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and psychology, we will recruit 6-8 per cohort into our wrap-around programming grounded in four program objectives: 1) engage students in state-of-the-art research assistantships at GSU and externships at Harvard or Vanderbilt; 2) enhance the academic environment through honors-level course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), seminars, a futuristic biotechnology course, and honors theses; 3) promote scientific communication, psychosocial awareness, and technical skills through workshops, conference travel, maker projects, and professional stewardship; and 4) maximize comprehensive mentoring and individualized career support through NRMN mentor training. IDPs, professional field trips, and timeline planning apps will alert scholars to a diverse array of career paths in research and facilitate clear career planning. Per our evaluation plan, we will evaluate student progress toward internal dispositions that predict research careers (e.g. self-efficacy and science identity), and measure the NIH benchmarks of 90% of MARC Scholars completing bachelor?s degrees, 60% proceeding into PhD programs, and 80% of those completing their advanced degrees. A balanced pair of Co-Principal Investigators, with expertise in both education and bench science, is well-positioned to lead a diverse and enthusiastic team of four key faculty, and over 30 supportive and productive faculty preceptors, working with foundational support from the Honors College and a new Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA) at Georgia State. Ultimately, MARC@GSU will prepare individuals from underrepresented groups for successful research careers, thereby helping to enhance the US research workforce.

ABSTRACT MARC Supplement at Georgia State University: Workforce Diversity Through Enhanced Mentoring MARC@GSU launched in 2019 and has supported two cohorts of high-performing undergraduates in mentored research and professional development opportunities; a third cohort is being recruited in spring 2021. Despite the pandemic-related challenges, we have successfully matched students with supportive faculty mentors, and they are generating, presenting, and publishing data together. Our mentors are attending mentoring workshops, and our trainees are attending professional development workshops. Nevertheless, sustained mentor-mentee communications and follow-up from workshops are not always optimal. This project proposed in this supplement application aims to develop and test a new tool to foster effective mentor-mentee relationships. We will establish a user-friendly, easily-accessible, online platform through which mentors can create customized mentoring workbooks for use with individual mentees or teams. The platform will support mentors as they guide MARC@GSU scholars toward diverse research career paths. For Aim 1, we will assess current mentor-mentee relationships and identify gaps in mentor preparation, using focus group discussions and literature-based searches. For Aim 2, we will assemble materials and build a platform through which mentors can create customized workbooks with exercises that will help to establish and actively maintain communications and effective mentoring relationships. We will also optimize the platform in collaboration with program directors and mentor-mentee dyads from collaborating institutions, enhancing generalizability of the platform. For Aim 3, we will integrate the new platform into research programs at GSU and make them available for other institutions nationwide, using promotional videos, instructional guides, targeted communiques, and peer-reviewed publications. Strategically designed assessments along with institutionalization and dissemination of the product will maximize the impact of this project. Ultimately, the platform will enhance development of mentors and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in biomedical research environments.