JONESBORO, Ark. — The New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine at Arkansas State University (NYITCOM at A-State) has a unique pipeline program called SHARE, which stands for Summer Health Academy for Research Exploration. This program allows high school students to spend eight weeks working alongside research scientists from both the medical school and A-State.

Program Details

The program incorporates hands-on STEM activities and provides a $4,000 stipend per participant, funded by a grant from the American Chemical Society. Over the last seven years, 54 high school students have participated in SHARE, with almost half coming from Nettleton.

Throughout the summer, NYITCOM faculty and staff lead SHARE participants through interactive activities that cover topics such as pharmacology, anatomy, and population health. The students also regularly participate in medical simulations and receive in-depth tours of the A-State campus and undergraduate admissions presentations from NYITCOM’s partner.

Perhaps the most unique and invaluable component is the research one. NYITCOM and A-State faculty members are paired with the participants, and the students spend extensive time working alongside their mentors in their Arkansas Biosciences Institute labs. The research projects cover a wide variety of topics, including extracting anticancer compounds from peanut hairy roots and testing synthetic cancer drugs in cultured cells.

Success Stories

Of those that have completed the SHARE program, 15 have enrolled in science programs at A-State, and an additional eight are now at the University of Central Arkansas. Jayson Smith, a rising sophomore psychology/pre-med major at the University of Central Arkansas, participated in the SHARE program for four years and shared his story at NYITCOM at A-State’s graduation program for its seventh SHARE cohort.

Original reporting: NEA Report (Jonesboro) — read the source article.