In an effort to boost the number of physicians in research medicine, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, based in Chevy Chase, has decided to expand its physician-scientist research grants by nearly 300 percent over last year, from $1.95 million in its inaugural year to $7.5 million.
“In spite of growing opportunities and promise … there is a decline in people who want to … do [both] scientific work and practice medicine,” Dr. Josephine Briggs, senior scientific officer at HHMI, told The Examiner. “The physician-scientist is sometimes referred to as an ‘endangered species,’ ” she added.
The grants, known as Early Career Awards, are designed for young physician-scientists who participated in either the HHMI-National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program or the HHMI Research Training Fellowships.
These two programs, which medical students typically take a year or longer to complete between their third and fourth year of school, “bring people in at a formative age, are highly selective and introduce them to doing fundamental research,” Briggs said.
Once students complete the programs, finish medical school, complete their residency and are in their last year of mentored training or in their first two years of full-time appointment on a tenure track, they can apply for the Early Career Awards.
This year, 20 recipients, who were just announced, will be given $375,000 over a five-year period. Last year, 13 awardees were granted $150,000 over three years.
The physician-scientists must use the funds for direct research expenses, and they have to work at medical institutions that allow them to spend at least 70 percent of the time in the laboratory doing research.
“Ph.D. scientists are important, but you also need scientists trained as docs, who understand disease and how you treat it, which is a key part in biomedical science,” Briggs said.
Recipients of this year’s awards will work at research medical institutions across the country, including the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Harvard University School of Public Health, the Mayo Clinic, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Duke University Medical Center.
