One way in which the National Institutes of Health endeavors to be more inclusive is through its Diversity Supplement mechanism, wherein investigators of funded grants can apply for a supplement to that award for the purpose of supporting a researcher from a traditionally underrepresented group within the scientific workforce. Under Jason Hinman, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in residence in the department of neurology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Hispanic junior investigator Matthew Anderson was granted one of these supplement awards. Through this award, he will work alongside Dr. Hinman on his research project, “Measuring endothelial contributions to blood-brain barrier integrity using adeno associated viruses.”
Per Anderson, the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) was instrumental in this process as it provided him access to helpful and essential materials during the process of writing his grant application. “It was with these materials as reference that I was able to effectively structure the flow of information in my writing and properly orient my ideas,” he reports. Some of these resources included CTSI’s Sample Grant Library, which houses a repository of successful diversity supplements and the CTSI’s Grants Submission Unit who assisted in this process by helping with administrative components of the Diversity Supplement application.
Anderson’s career began at Hamilton College, a liberal arts college in New York. The freedoms afforded by its curriculum allowed him to explore many different subjects and discover what he was passionate about, leading him to biology and neuroscience. As a result, he joined the Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program at UCLA and commenced his research. This involved conducting experiments on a human organoid model and exploring the impact of various drug interventions on neural recovery after stroke in mice. Through his Brain Research Institute Summer Undergraduate Research Experience summer fellowship at UCLA, he developed an interest in the mechanistic understanding of neurodegenerative disease. His dedication to this area of interest led to his first publication…
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