Attention "normal" Penn Staters: Do you wish to donate your living body to help science?

Your life as a human guinea pig will only last a semester. The program is for students willing to serve as normal controls in biomedical research studies, said Loretta Coughlin, assistant chief of the Normal Volunteer Program.

A representative from The National Institutes of Health will be on campus March 26, 27 and 28 to recruit student volunteers for NIH's Normal Volunteer Program.

Qualified volunteers spend about one semester living at the Clinical Center of the NIH complex in Bethesda, Md., Coughlin said, to participate in protocols or experiments run by doctors who need regular, healthy people to study, she said.

The subjects of the protocols vary, she said. Some common research topics include sleep, diets, hormones and viruses.

Often protocols take little of the volunteer's time, Coughlin said. In their free time many students opt to participate in NIH's career assignment program. Volunteers can choose from more than 100 different labs in which to work for their career assignment, she added.

Working in a lab as part of a career assignment becomes a "very valuable experience for making career decisions," Coughlin said.

In addition to working in the labs, volunteers often spend time touring nearby Washington, D.C., she said.

For their participation in the program, volunteers are paid $12.50 per day plus the cost of transportation from their schools, Coughlin said. Rooms at the hospital and meals are included in the program.

Coughlin said she is most interested in college juniors and science majors, but any student can apply.

Interested students can sign up for an interview through the Office of Research in the College of Science, said Susan DelPonte, secretary to associate dean of research of the College of Science.

Prior to the interview, students must attend a meeting Monday, March 26 in the dean's office, DelPonte said. The purpose of this meeting is to offer more information about the program. The recruiter will be present a slide show about the program and answer any questions that the students might have, she added.

Former volunteers also will recount their experiences and will also answer any questions, DelPonte said.

The next two days of the interviews will consist of the actual individual interview, DelPonte said. Each interview is one-on-one with the recruiter and will take about half an hour. The interview mostly consists of going over the medical history of the student and determining whether the student is qualified.

Coughlin said she will visit eight schools to recruit 12 volunteers for the program.

In past years, as many as six students from the University and also as few as one student have been selected at one time to be volunteers, DelPonte said.