The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Short-Term Research Experience Program to Unlock Potential  (STEP-UP) is a national program designed to provide opportunities in individualized research for high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds or underrepresented racial/ethnic groups in biomedical and behavioral research. The goal of this program is to expose students to hands-on laboratory, clinical and social/behavioral research with the hope of igniting and fostering their interests in scientific research and investigation. The long-term goal of the program is to increase the number of underrepresented minorities of disadvantaged students who are committed to careers in biomedical, clinical and social/behavioral science research in order to strengthen and diversify the biomedical and healthcare workforces that are essential for meeting the needs of under-served minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.

 

NIDDK's core mission areas are diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases, digestive diseases and nutrition, kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. 

 

The STEP-UP Program is federally funded program managed and supported by the Office of Minority Health Research Coordination (OMHRC) in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney (NIDDK) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).