Eclose Institute

Our goals are

1) Educational:
To improve biomedical research literacy among middle and high school students, thus promoting health education for all while inspiring and supporting many to continue in research.

eCLOSE programs encourage students to bring their own cultural dietary practices to investigate how diet impacts diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and now COVID-19. This sets a foundation for exploration that puts the learning in the hands of the students, promoting curiosity, commitment, diligence, and collaboration that enhance STEM education and ignite interest in pursuing additional math and science courses.

2) Workforce development:
Our 4 iterative levels of training provide exceptional opportunities for participants to gain research independence, even before entering college. Currently, fewer than 6% of Philadelphia public school students are awarded college degrees in science majors, with fewer than 1% from the African-American community. eCLOSE is turning those numbers upside down, with 75% of participants in advanced levels continuing in research in college, and 96% completing undergraduate STEM degrees. We are well underway towards building a fully-trained young, diverse workforce to transform biomedicine.

3) Disease prevention and treatment
All eCLOSE programs focus on real research questions, with the goal of developing diets tailored to improve treatment and prevent disease. Students screen individual nutrients and foods to identify the specific disease pathways impacted by dietary changes. In advanced programs, candidate nutrients are combined with existing disease treatments to determine how diet might alter treatment. The work of eCLOSE participants is often published in peer-reviewed scientific publications.

eCLOSE addresses these challenges by providing professional research training for middle and high school students and teachers. eCLOSE Institute has three current programs:

1) eCLOSE Classroom Research
Under the guidance of eCLOSE-trained teachers, students in Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Science classes conduct research programs using a curriculum that aligns with local and national standards. More than 1000 students contribute research ideas and data to urgent ongoing projects each year.

2) eCLOSE Summer Camp
eCLOSE Summer Camp provides an advanced training level, infusing mathematics with research in a seamless way that emphasizes the critical importance of math in biomedical applications. Students gain advanced technical skills using professional laboratory equipment, while advancing projects initiated in the eCLOSE Classroom Research program to understand how individual nutrients or junk food affect disease pathways.

3) Teacher Professional Development
eCLOSE trains teachers to conduct research programs focused on diseases most important to their students. Teachers gain professional technical skills and the support of the scientific community to conduct original research projects in classrooms that align with curricula requirements as well as local and national standards.

Key tenets of eCLOSE programs:
1) Cultural relevance
The richness of cultural dietary practices provides both an entry point of understanding for students and teachers and a breadth of potential compounds for use in disease prevention and treatment. Everyone eats, and diet is the key element to improving health and preventing disease. We celebrate and embrace cultural differences as a pathway to identifying new approaches for disease treatment, including everyone in biomedical research, and addressing egregious health disparities that arise due to lack of diversity in research and clinical care.

2) Professional training
Many programs offer students the opportunity to repeat experiments done by professional scientists to "get the right answer". The only outcomes are the student will be right or wrong. eCLOSE programming transforms students into researchers, asking the questions of highest interest to the student and providing opportunities to investigate these ideas through experimentation. Students utilize professional tools and approaches, providing them with a true experience of life as a scientist and integrating them into the growing eCLOSE scientific community.

3) Community
Research clearly demonstrates that mentoring, peer support, and awareness of the expectations for STEM careers is critical to success. eCLOSE provides dozens of opportunities each year for networking of current and former participants, teachers, and scientists, to build a strong, supportive community to ensure success.

eCLOSE is led by a Science Teacher-Scientist team who have worked together for 8 years to develop the current program. This pairing is retained throughout all eCLOSE programs, providing exceptional educational and scientific research mentors and guides for student participants. Our complementary expertise results in a powerful program that reaches all participants at the highest level in both science education and biomedical research.

eCLOSE evolved from an academic program, starting with 15 students in 2013, and now including nearly 1200 students/year in eCLOSE research. The logarithmic growth since 2018 demonstrates the interest and engagement of teachers and students in the program, establishing a strong participant base as eCLOSE transitions into an independent non-profit.

More than 75% of participants in the highest training levels pursue paid research positions in college, continuing their research education and making publishable contributions to disease and basic research. With the current growth trajectory, we anticipate many hundreds of eCLOSE participants will obtain gainful employment in research labs in college, providing them with a local, safe community in the lab to support their success in STEM majors.

eCLOSE has 24 teacher members, 16 of whom have returned year after year to participate in eCLOSE programming. Our incredible teacher network makes us uniquely poised to impact thousands of students and support those who continue in research and STEM.

Our Advisory Board is comprised of experts in business, education research, biomedicine, data collection and analysis, education, workforce development, and public health. This powerful group of professionals provide key guidance for programming and business planning to ensure our growth and ability to support our participants.

Our Team is comprised of the eCLOSE program founders, 5 Master Science Teachers, 3 Senior Scientist Instructors, and 5 Junior Scientist Instructors, all of whom are exceptionally talented professionals as well as close friends. The power of collaboration and friendship is modeled by this exceptional team, to emphasize that working together is transformative, both personally and for driving research forward.

Since the inception of the academic program in 2013, eCLOSE has trained over 2000 middle and high school students in biomedical research, primarily focused on cancer and diabetes.