• The addition of a part-time secretary on the conjoint HHMI 51004115 assisted in the management of two simultaneous awards. The nature of the Base Pair and Summer Research Institute programs requires extensive and time-consuming coordination. However, the constraints on program administration budgets (10% of total award) do not provide sufficient manpower to coordinate activities, expenditures and participants as rigorously as desired by the Program Director. The Medical Center has allowed significant assistance by financial and secretarial personnel outside of the HHMI support that has proven essential to reasonable management of the award(s). Allocation of indirect overhead funds to the institution and/or a greater allocation for Program Administration seems desirable.
• The addition of a part-time secretary on the conjoint HHMI 51004115 assisted in the management of two simultaneous awards. However, the constraints on program administration budgets (10% of total award) have proven to be limiting to the collection of accurate, prospective and fully detailed information concerning program outcomes. A Program Co-Investigator resigned from the Medical Center, which reduced the resources available for Program Assessment. The outcomes information desired by HHMI has proven to be extremely time-consuming and difficult to negotiate as human studies protocols have come under increasing scrutiny by institutions and governmental agencies. Collaborative arrangements with a faculty member from an adjacent institution have been negotiated that assist in Program Assessment, but additional help is desirable.

• The Base Pair web site, http://basepair.library.umc.edu/, has been upgraded and revised. The number of "hits" has increased correspondingly, up to 41,118 for 2003-2004.
• An evening Community Science Forum (CSF) has been initiated as a series of evening presentations, led by public high school students from the Base Pair and Student Oriented Academic Research (SOAR) prgorams. The Forums are held on the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) campus. Topics focus on contemporary aspects of science that have direct societal impact. Parents and other community members are invited. The UMC already offers an evening ¿Mini-Med School¿ series for the general public, the community reception of which facilitates drawing a significant and diverse audience to the CSF. Topics for presentation are selected from contemporary issues in science of general interest to community members. For example, in the Central Mississippi region, biomedical and biotechnological issues of great concern include prominently topics as the ecology, epidemiology and treatment of the West Nile virus and of Lyme disease, the medical and ecological impact of Solenopsis invicta, the imported fire ant, identification and treatment of exposure to bioterrorism and chemical warfare agents, and the biology and bioethics of stem cell utilization, to name only a few. Each presentation will be developed and emceed by the students, with the active assistance of UMC faculty and mentors expert in the field and who have name recognition within the local community. Students develop, using Microsoft Publisher or similar software, and disseminate, before each program, packets of background information and information sources on each topic. Consultations are made with the University of Mississippi Department of Journalism to provide students with tutorials in presentation of such material for maximum community impact.

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