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Build a medical research proposal with Polygence during 2 weeks on the University of Michigan campus for high school students, then continue through 10 mentor sessions.
Course Description
A healthcare breakthrough often begins with a carefully framed question. Find something you want to understand, then work out what kind of study could produce useful evidence.
In this course you will choose a medicine or public-health topic and examine what researchers already know. Build a medical research timeline, try a literature scavenger hunt to evaluate sources, and work through a data challenge. PICO helps focus a question around a population, intervention, comparison, and outcome. Qualitative and quantitative methods, data collection and analysis, community-engaged research, ethics, and budgets show what a study needs beyond the question.
This hybrid academy combines campus study with Polygence’s Core Research Program. Workshops help you develop a medical research proposal, abstract, visual data, and professional scientific poster for a symposium-style presentation. After campus, you’ll join a virtual cohort and work 1:1 with a Polygence research mentor matched to your field of interest. Across 10 virtual sessions, continue at an individual pace toward a research paper, symposium presentation, podcast, or another appropriate final format.
This two-week Summer Discovery full-day academy for high school students takes place on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Students spend the full program focused on one intensive academy.
What You Will Do
• Build a medical research timeline and evaluate sources
• Frame a focused question using PICO
• Plan methods, data, budgets, and ethical safeguards
• Create an abstract, visual data, and scientific poster
• Present and defend your proposal in a mock symposium
• Continue through 10 one-to-one virtual Polygence mentor sessions
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
• Formulate a researchable medicine or public-health question grounded in scientific literature
• Justify ethical study methods and data choices for a research question
• Communicate a research plan’s purpose, methods, and significance
You’ll leave with your medical research proposal, scientific poster, plan for continuing through Polygence mentorship and a certificate of completion.
Why Medical Research Skills Matter
Medical research skills help students distinguish a compelling health question from one that can actually be investigated. They learn to trace a claim to evidence, judge the quality of a source, choose methods that fit the question, and consider how study design affects the conclusions that can be drawn.
Ethics and community-engagement exercises add another layer. A technically sound project must also consider consent, risk, representation, and the people affected by the research. Writing an abstract and building a poster develop precision because students must explain purpose, methods, and significance without hiding behind jargon. These habits support future work in medicine, public health, biology, health policy, and other evidence-driven fields.
Who Should Attend?
For students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
A health claim can be a starting point for research: what evidence supports it, and what is still unknown? This academy suits students who want to investigate those questions. Interests in medicine, biology, epidemiology, health policy, or data can become a substantial independent proposal. You don’t need a completed research question on arrival. Scientific reading, steady work on one topic, ethics, and revision after feedback are part of developing it.
The project continues after campus through 10 one-to-one virtual sessions with a Polygence mentor matched to your field of interest.
Recommended by More Than 9 out of 10 Students
Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 program at the University of Michigan.
Your Summer at University of Michigan
Programs on the University of Michigan campus give high-school students the experience of exploring an academic interest in Ann Arbor, a college town where campus and community life blend together. Tree-lined streets, downtown bookstores and cafés, the Nichols Arboretum, and trails near the Huron River create different ways to experience the setting beyond class.
Students learn alongside peers, navigate a large and active campus, and gain independence through everyday choices in a new environment. The experience helps students understand what university life can feel like while giving them space to deepen an interest without having every next step decided. For families, the program offers a meaningful combination of academic depth, community, personal growth, and clearer direction about what a student may want to study or pursue next.
After successfully finishing this course, you will be awarded a certification completion for your accomplishment.
*This is a preview, not what you will receive