To develop and foster a rich and stimulating intellectual environment that promotes, augments and strengthens the competitive research capabilities of MSM investigators in the reproductive sciences. Our ultimate goal is to become a training and mentoring resource Center for minority investigators. This goal will be achieved by addressing the following specific aims.

I) Develop and foster productive collaborations between research scientists within the MSM Center and at the SCCPRR at the University of Pittsburgh Medical school that will be mutually beneficial to both members of the partnership.

II) Develop an Administrative Core that supports and promotes the reproductive science research efforts of the MSM Center as a whole and the Center's investigators and their projects in particular.

III) Develop and sustain an infrastructure within MSM that nurtures and supports a productive research program in the reproductive sciences.

IV) Organize an administrative support system that facilitates evaluation of research quality and progress in order to ensure that the research objectives and goals of the Center and its investigators are being successfully achieved, and that offers recommendations for future directions for designated Center projects.

V) Establish and support the monthly Center Meetings and an annual Seminar Series in the reproductive sciences.

VI) Organize and support the annual visit and minisymposium and semiannual videoconferencing sessions between MSM investigators and their collaborators at the University of Pittsburgh.