ATLANTA, Oct. 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A $483,620 federal grant will transform how Spelman College prepares the next generation of biomedical scientists. Mentewab Ayalew, Ph.D., a professor of biology, has secured three years of funding from the National Institutes of Health to build an integrated genomic data science curriculum.
The investment addresses an urgent national need: the biomedical research workforce is facing a severe shortage of professionals trained to manage the massive datasets that are now driving breakthroughs in cancer research, human genetics, neuroscience and disease prevention. The award will dramatically expand student engagement with pressing scientific challenges— from understanding cancer-associated genetic variants to analyzing pathogen data and exploring how metal pollution affects microbiome health.
"Highly efficient processes for generating sequences and other high throughput data have profoundly transformed the field of biomedical science," Ayalew explains. "Research in cancer, major diseases, human genetics, neuroscience, and behavior is now data-driven in ways that were unimaginable just a decade ago."
The NIH estimates a shortage of tens of thousands of trained professionals in the coming decade as precision medicine, personalized cancer treatments and population health initiatives accelerate. Yet, people of color remain dramatically underrepresented in computational biology and bioinformatics fields, limiting the diversity of perspectives brought to bear on health disparities and disease research.
Dr. Ayalew’s solution is both ambitious and practical: four interconnected modules woven throughout Spelman's biology curriculum. The curriculum's first module tackles MSH2 variants associated with colon cancer through Bio 125, Molecular Biology and Genomics. Taught by a six-member faculty team across four sections, the course will introduce 50-80 first-year students each semester to cloud-based computing, association studies, and data privacy and ethics.
The curriculum represents what Dr. Ayalew calls "a more concerted and coordinated effort to adapt our curriculum to modern biology," and aligns with Goal 1 of the College’s Strategic Plan to evolve curriculum, research, pedagogy and modality.
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About Spelman College
Founded in 1881, Spelman College is a leading liberal arts college widely recognized as the global leader in the education of women of African descent. Located in Atlanta, the College’s picturesque campus is home to 2,300 students. Spelman is the country's leading producer of Black women who complete Ph.D.s in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). The College’s status is confirmed by the U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Spelman No. 39 among all liberal arts colleges, No. 19 for undergraduate teaching, No. 2 for social mobility among liberal arts colleges, and No. 1 for the 17th year among historically Black colleges and universities. Recent initiatives include a designation by the Department of Defense as a Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM, a Gender and Sexuality Studies Institute, the first endowed queer studies chair at an HBCU and a program to increase the number of Black women Ph.D.s in economics. New majors and minors have been added, including documentary filmmaking and photography, data science, refugee studies and gaming. Collaborations have been also established with MIT’s Media Lab, the Broad Institute and the Army Research Lab for artificial intelligence and machine learning, among others.
Outstanding alumnae include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman, former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Rosalind Brewer, political leader Stacey Abrams, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook, former Acting Surgeon General and Spelman’s first alumna president Audrey Forbes Manley, Harvard University professor and former Dean Evelynn Hammonds, actress and producer Latanya Richardson Jackson, global bioinformatics geneticist Janina Jeff and authors Pearl Cleage and Tayari Jones.
To learn more, please visit spelman.edu and @spelmancollege on social media.
Brijea Daniel Spelman College brijeadaniel@spelman.edu
