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 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
HHMI 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-NIH research scholars. They will live and work on the campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, where HHMI’s research scholars program is based at a historic building informally known as the Cloister.
“Physician-scientists are essential to the advancement of medical research,” said William 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.”
This year 364 students from 91 medical and dental schools applied for the research opportunities. 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 eight percent of the fellows. Fields of research interest range widely, with a majority choosing cell or molecular biology, genetics, immunology, and neuroscience.
Since the Institute’s research programs for medical students began in 1985, HHMI has supported research training for nearly 1,000 medical student fellows and more than 800 research scholars, many of whom have gone on to make contributions to bridging the gap between laboratory science and medicine. For example, Dr. Joseph Vinetz, an HHMI-NIH Cloister scholar in 1988, is now an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he conducts research from bench to bedside on tropical infectious diseases. He takes a comprehensive approach, studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying transmission and doing field work among infected populations in Peru. Vinetz has served on three review panels for HHMI international research scholar competitions.
The 2005 research scholars and fellows are::
|
2005 Research Training Fellowships for Medical Students |
|
|
Name |
Medical School |
|
Hannah Alphs |
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
|
Nicholas Andersen |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Issa Bagayogo |
UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School |
|
Bradley Barnett |
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
|
Pavan Bendapudi |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Gabriel Brooks |
Cornell University Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences |
|
Jolie Chang |
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine |
|
Han-Chiao Chen |
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine |
|
Jason Cheng |
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine |
|
Julia Chu |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Steven Corsello |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Paul Dieffenbach |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Kasra Eliasieh |
University of California, School of Medicine (Davis, California) |
|
Sophie Esmail |
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Southwestern Medical School |
|
Gustave Falciglia |
Northwestern University, The Feinberg School of Medicine |
|
Eric Fuh |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
David Garras |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Ahmed Ghazi |
Yale University School of Medicine |
|
Vinai Gondi |
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons |
|
Lia Halasz |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Simon Hanft |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Jonas Heymann |
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons |
|
Robert Hillman |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Ashley Holder |
Baylor College of Medicine |
|
Joyce Hsu |
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine |
|
Jonathan Jacobs |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Elliot Jerud |
Albert Einstein College of Medicine |
|
Janice Jin |
Harvard Medical School |
|
M. Yashar Kalani |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Michael Keller |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Victoria Kuohung |
Yale University School of Medicine |
|
Levi Ledgerwood |
Mount Sinai School of Medicine |
|
Aram Lee |
Yale University School of Medicine |
|
Theodore Marentis |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Matthew McCarthy |
Harvard Medical School |
|
David Michel |
Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University |
|
Mark Murakami |
Washington University School of Medicine |
|
Mandar Muzumdar |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Haley Naik |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Jared Narvid |
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine |
|
Bichchau Nguyen |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Yana Pikman |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Tonguc Pinar |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Chad Ruffin |
Louisiana State University School of Medicine (Shreveport, Louisiana) |
|
Rafael Sanchez |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Nefthi Sandeep |
New York University School of Medicine |
|
Jonathan Schoenfeld |
Harvard Medical School |
|
Daniel Schreeder |
University of Alabama School of Medicine |
|
Brian Schulman |
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine |
|
Pritha Sen |
Harvard Medical School |
|
John Paul Shen |
Washington University School of Medicine |
|
Aaron Small |
Mayo Medical School |
|
Brad Stevinson |
Georgetown University School of Medicine |
|
Kristen Thorstenson |
University of Minnesota Medical School-Twin Cities |
|
Ryan Turley |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Danielle Underkoffler |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Ronald Viola |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Ruobing Wang |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Sunny Wang |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
John Werner |
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
|
Valerie Wolfe |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Judith Wong |
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine |
|
Nanfei Zhang |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Sandy Zhang |
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
|
Xiao Zhao |
Mount Sinai School of Medicine |
|
Suzana Zorca |
Harvard Medical School |
|
2005 HHMI-NIH Research Scholars |
|
|
Name |
Medical School |
|
Ahmet Altiner |
New York University School of Medicine |
|
Eve Bowers |
Emory University School of Medicine |
|
Raul Calderon |
Harvard Medical School |
|
May Chan |
University at Buffalo, State University of New York School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences |
|
Atif Collins |
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine |
|
John Eifler |
Cornell University Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College and Graduate School of Medical Sciences |
|
Joshua Fernandes |
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences |
|
Thomas Fishler |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Belinda Galeano |
Mayo Medical School |
|
John Gonzales |
Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California |
|
Solomon Graf |
Boston University School of Medicine |
|
Joshua Hanson |
Washington University School of Medicine |
|
Adrianna Jackson |
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine |
|
Jared Jagdeo |
Brown Medical School |
|
Nieraj Jain |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Jayne Joo |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Louis Joseph |
Wayne State University School of Medicine |
|
Christopher Kanakry |
Duke University School of Medicine |
|
Lanea Keller |
Rush Medical College of Rush University |
|
Grant Lee |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Jamey Levy |
New York University School of Medicine |
|
Anne Lewis |
University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine |
|
Susan Mackie |
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons |
|
Gabriel Mannis |
University of California, School of Medicine (Davis, California) |
|
Brian Masselink |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Margaret McKinney |
Brown Medical School |
|
Garani Nadaraja |
Northwestern University, The Feinberg School of Medicine |
|
Jemiel Nejim |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Sampeter Odera |
Harvard University School of Dental Medicine |
|
Stephen Pan |
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine |
|
Joseph Pennington |
Eastern Virginia Medical School |
|
Jason Poff |
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons |
|
Gulnar Pothiawala |
University of Vermont College of Medicine |
|
Annely Richardson |
Boston University School of Medicine |
|
Lauren Shapiro |
Stanford University School of Medicine |
|
Hadley Sharp |
University of Nebraska College of Medicine |
|
Willie Siu |
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA |
|
Julia Wang |
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine |
|
Brian Webster |
University of California, School of Medicine (San Diego, California) |
|
Christopher Welty |
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine |
|
Joshua Wolf |
New York University School of Medicine |
|
Hua Yang |
Albert Einstein College of Medicine |