MORE THAN 100 STUDENTS FROM 40 MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND ONE DENTAL SCHOOL across the United States will spend their next academic year learning what it's like to do medical research. They are recipients of approximately $3.7 million in new research fellowships and awards from HHMI.

The Institute runs two programs designed to interest medical and dental students in becoming physician-scientists. Both programs enable the students to take a year off from medical school to do mentored research.

This year, 66 medical students received HHMI research training fellowships, which they will use at medical research centers nationwide. Another 42 medical and dental students were accepted as HHMI-National Institutes of Health (NIH) research scholars. They will live and work on the campus of NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, where HHMI's research scholars program is based at a historic building informally known as the Cloister.

		Women comprise 38 percent of the research scholars and 35 percent of those receiving fellowships. Minorities underrepresented in the sciences account for 24 percent of the research scholars and 8 percent of the fellows. Fields of research interest range widely, with a majority choosing cell or molecular biology, genetics, immunology, and neuroscience.

"Physician-scientists are essential to the advancement of medical research," says William R. Galey, graduate science education program director at HHMI. "Such individuals are aware of the pressing problems in medicine, so they are in a unique position to help translate new basic science discoveries into treatments for disease."

Since HHMI's research programs for medical students began in 1985, the Institute has supported research training for nearly 1,000 medical fellows and more than 800 research scholars.