The mission of the Mayo MSTP is to train talented and passionate students to be critical, productive physician scientists. Our main objective is to prepare our students for academic careers in basic, translational and clinical research, focused on studying fundamental questions and translating basic discoveries into medical advances. The Director's and Associate Director's philosophy is that the skills required for this type of academic career are best developed in a basic research setting; however, the unique quality of the physician scientist is the ability to integrate basic studies with translational and clinical research to ultimately advance the practice of medicine. An MSTP grant was first awarded by NIGMS in 2003 and renewed in 2008. During the first nine years of support, our MSTP has continued to develop and mature while maintaining the aspects that were praised by Reviewers of the prior submissions. The main strengths of our MSTP are: * An enthusiastic training faculty of 91 mentors that provides extensive opportunities for cutting-edge interdisciplinary training in basic, translational, and clinical research; * Outstanding current students who are passionate about the study of fundamental biological processes of relevance to human disease; * A highly competitive applicant pool; * An autonomous admissions process that enables selection of students based on their prior research experiences and excitement for biomedical research; * An effective recruitment and retention plan to enhance diversity with two URM MD-PhD students who completed training during the past five years and eight URM and/or students from disadvantaged background or with disabilities who are currently in training; * Integration of medical and graduate school curricula, which allows students to complete three required graduate courses and two laboratory rotations during MS1 and MS2; * Programmatic features, including the MSTP Selectives, Weekly MSTP Conferences, MSTP Annual Retreat, and MSTP Clinical Re-Entry Course that respond to specific needs of MD-PhD students; * Strong institutional support for education, which enables us to fund our MD-PhD students throughout their medical and graduate training, providing exceptional flexibility in choosing thesis laboratories; * Exceptional research resources that are accessible to our students and profoundly enhance their educational experience; * A dedicated Director and Associate Director and outstanding administrative support for the Program.
The educational mission of the Mayo Clinic MSTP is to train future leaders in biomedical research and academic medicine. In addition to providing strong education in medicine and intensive training in scientific inquiry, we strive to (i) train our students to seek medical implications in even the most basic scientific discoveries; (ii) foster their innate curiosity so that they will be keen to take clinical questions back to the laboratory o look for new fundamental knowledge; and (iii) develop their leadership and collaborative skills so that they will be prepared to bridge basic and clinical research efforts as they pave the way for innovative solutions to medical problems. Mayo Clinic's exceptionally strong integration between basic science and clinical and translational research fosters the environment necessary to achieve our educational mission.
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