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The University of Tennessee

The Graduate School of Medicine




 

Program Overview


This program will provide the students (e.g. selected sophomore high school student and incoming UTK Freshmen) with the skill set required to make significant contributions to research endeavors at the University of Tennessee (UT) Graduate School of Medicine (GSM) and College of Engineering (COE). The polyMER program is composed of three phases, listed below.

  1. Formal Education (a month and a half): Ensuring the existence of a common foundation between all incoming students including organic chemistry, biology, biochemistry, physics, ethics, logic, technical writing, presentation skills, and creativity. Professors of various disciplines from many areas of UT campus conduct this phase during two-hour lectures everyday for a month and a half.

  2. Apprenticeship (six months to one year): The student starts to develop a functional understanding of the concepts required to work in the lab under individual mentorship from a graduate research assistant. This phase requires at least nine hours of lab work a week. As the apprenticeship is finishing, the student will meet with the primary advisor and mentor graduate student to develop a very well defined research proposal in NIH format. The research proposal will be presented at our weekly group meeting for approval or request for revision. Upon acceptance of the research proposal, the student will move to phase III.

  3. Semi-Independent Research (one to two years): The student will spend the remainder of their time in the lab implementing the research plan that they developed in phase II.

Mentoring
The true key to any successful research experience is the availability of mentor who cares about the development of the individual researcher and not just research results. For this reason, phase II and III students will have an individual graduate student mentor and have weekly meetings with the primary advisor to gain a functional understanding of what is required to be a professional researcher.

Education
Formal education is a component that is very often ignored when bringing high school students into the laboratory environment. This component is paramount, in order for the graduate students and high school students to have a common fundamental understanding and vocabulary. This component of the experience also serves to educate the high school students on the potential hazards of conducting research and the proper protective measures that should be taken at each stage.

Research
The selected students conduct research in collaboration with the Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine (GSM). Their research is focused on polymer engineering, tissue engineering, and utilization of stem cells.

Department of Surgery, Polymer Engineering, Division of Biology, Preston Medical Library, College of Veterinary Medicine, Center for Enhancing Education in Mathematics and Sciences, School of Journalism, School of Communication Studies, and Department of English

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Contact:
Dr. Chris Stephens
Assistant Professor
Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine

The University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine

polyMER High School
and Undergraduate Enrichment Program

Department of Surgery & UT Center for Materials Processing
UT Graduate School of Medicine
1924 Alcoa Highway
Knoxville, TN 37920

Phone:865-305-7220
Email: csteph1@utk.edu