The goal of the MSTP at the University of Washington (UW) is to train the next generation of outstanding medical research scientists. The UW MSTP began 33 years ago and now enrolls 12 new students annually. Of 105 trackable MSTP graduates (109 total), 92 are pursuing biomedical research careers, either as established scientists (51) or as residents and postdoctoral fellows still in training (41). Ph.D. disciplines most popular with MSTP students are molecular and cell biology, neurobiology and behavior, genome sciences, and bioengineering. Student training is guided by a core faculty of 69 tenured professors (21 M.D/Ph.D., 37 Ph.D., 11 M.D.), all with federally supported research. These core faculty are selected from >1000 professors with a mechanism for including new faculty as appropriate. Students work in laboratories at the UW or at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In addition to their Ph.D. mentor, each trainee is advised throughout the MSTP by a young tenured faculty member who completed the M.D./Ph.D. ? ? Special programs dedicated to MSTP trainees include a supper seminar series, continuity clerkships during the research years, a post-Ph.D reorientation series prior to clinical clerkships, evenings devoted to each of the critical choices during a trainee's program (dissertation mentor, clerkships, residency, and postdoc), an annual summer retreat, and ski trips and hiking expeditions. These programs are possible because of the experience and commitment of the MSTP administrators: the director, two associate directors, and two professional staff have collectively devoted 48 years to this MSTP. ? ? NIH now supports 28 of the 72 UW MSTP trainees. Contributions from the UW School of Medicine, from private donors in Seattle, and from research and training support to faculty mentors more than double available support, enabling full funding of all students. With this renewal, we request increased NIH support of 7 positions, to a total of 35 NIH supported students, permitting 14 trainees to be enrolled each year. The UW and the FHCRC are currently in a period of extraordinary growth, particularly in genome sciences and bioengineering, programs of choice of an increasing number of MSTP students. This growth is associated with newly recruited faculty and with expanding research programs of established mentors. This infrastructure provides local resources to complement additional NIH support so as to create and maintain an MSTP cohort of approximately 100 trainees in all phases of the program. ? ? ?
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