Program Director: Marcus Clark
Associate Dean: Abby Stayart
Openings: 22 M.D./Ph.D., 0 Predoctoral, 0 Postdoctoral
PROJECT SUMMARY The mission of The University of Chicago (UChicago) Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) is to train the next generation of clinician-scientists for impactful careers in the biomedical sciences. Impact is broadly defined as: providing fundamental insights into disease and relevant biological mechanisms, leading or making substantial contributions to translational efforts to identify better therapies and/or filling leadership roles that will determine how limited resources can best be used to improve human health. Our overall objective is to train outstanding and self-directed clinician scientists who can formulate and answer biologically and medically- important questions. Two unique features of the program enable our mission and provide an optimal training environment for the development of clinician-scientists. First, we are our own graduate program, the Interdisciplinary Scientist Training Program (ISTP). The ISTP allows integration of graduate and medical school classes in MS1, development of tailored curricula for each trainee, coordination across training transitions and uniform oversight and expectations during the graduate phase. Second, most trainees pursue a 1-4-3 progression of study rather than the traditional 2-4-2 progression. While trainees may pursue a 2-4-2, the 1-4-3 provides a continuous and in-depth graduate experience where trainees become well-trained scientists who can propose and rigorously test hypotheses. The 1-4-3 also provides a seamless transition between the preclinical and clinical phases which facilitates overall success in medical school.
Training Faculty:
- Clark, Marcus: Adaptive Immunity, Autoimmunity, B Cells, Chromatin Organization, Developmental Biology, Gene regulation, Lupus Nephritis, and Molecular Biology
- Adams, Erin: Molecular signals that are used by the immune system to distinguish healthy from unhealthy tissue
- Ahsan, Habibul: Large-scale population-based studies assessing environmental disease risks and their modifying factors including social, biological and other disparity-related factors
- Alegre, Maria-Luisa: T cell responses in settings of transplantation, autoimmunity and cancer, with an emphasis on mouse models and emerging extensions onto clinical translation
- Alenghat, Francis: Novel signaling mechanisms of inflammation and resolution in macrophages
- Alverdy, John: Molecular pathogenesis of postoperative infections and the role of the microbiome in sepsis, anastomotic leak, and surgical site infections
- Arac-Ozkan, Demet: Understanding the molecular mechanism of cell-cell communication using a variety of structural and functional approaches
- Bader, Kenneth: Image-guided therapies for the treatment of vascular and cancerous diseases
- Barreiro, Luis: Linking functional genomic studies of the immune system to an evolutionarily informed understanding of human variation in immune responses to infection and susceptibility to immune-related disorders
- Basu, Anindita: Develop and use high throughput single-cell genomics to map different organs in health and disease, including human heart, gut and female reproductive system and fish fins
- Becker, Lev: Use a multi-disease approach to develop a comprehensive understanding of macrophage biology, and then translates this mechanistic understanding to develop therapeutics across a spectrum of human disease
- Bettencourt, Luis: The creation of new interdisciplinary synthesis to describe cities in quantitative and predictive ways, informed by classical theory from various disciplines and the growing availability of empirical data worldwide
- Brady, Matthew: Adipocyte biology, energy metabolism and insulin sensitivity
- Carrillo, Robert: of the developmental mechanisms responsible for proper neural circuit formation and function
- Chang, Eugene: Host-microbe interactions and disease mechanisms of the gut in states of health and disease (primarily IBD and metabolic disorders)
- Chen, Chin-Tu: Multi-Modality Molecular Imaging & Theranostics
- Chen, Jing: Translational research of human cancers, with a particular focus on signaling basis underlying cancer metabolism
- Chen, Mengjie: Statistical methods to address the challenges those technologies have posed for data analysis and interpretation
- Chevrier, Nicolas: Biochemistry, Immunology, and Systems Biology
- Chin, Marshall: Translational research to improve diabetes care for vulnerable populations
- Chong, Anita: Transplantation tolerance and infection; Multidisciplinary effort to develop adjuvant-free vaccines for infectious diseases
- Cobey, Sarah: Diversity and evolution of pathogens and pathogen communities
- Dickinson, Bryan: Synthetic chemistry, protein engineering, and molecular evolution to create molecules that measure and control biological systems
- Doiron, Brent: Nonlinear dynamics and statistical mechanics, with an emphasis on the genesis and transfer of variability in neural circuits
- Dolan, M. Eileen: Antineoplastic Agents, Genome Wide Association Studies, IPS Cells, Pharmacogenomics, Toxicities
- Drummond, Alan: Cell Biology, Heat Shock Response, Molecular Evolution, Phase Separation, Stress Response, Physiological
- Dulin, Nickolai: Signal transduction as related to myofibroblast biology and pulmonary fibrosis
- Esser-Kahn, Aaron: Designing adjuvant responses and understanding the essential elements behind immune stimulation
- Esterhazy, Daria: Understand how multiple immune-logically distinct niches co-exist within the digestive system, shaping site-specific homeostasis and response to dietary challenge, commensal colonization and infection
- Fei, Jingyi: Use of single-molecule biophysical tools, cell imaging techniques to answer fundamental biological questions, with a focus on RNA biology
- Freedman, David: Neuronal mechanisms underlying visual learning, categorization and decision-making
- Gajewski, Thomas: Mechanisms of control of anti-tumor immune responses from within the tumor micro-environment
- Garcia, Alfredo: Understanding the mechanistic relationships between the regulation of blood gas homeostasis and neural networks.
- Gardel, Margaret: Regulation of contractile cytoskeleton in non-muscle cells
- Giger, Maryellen: Computer-aided diagnosis, image based risk assessment, and quantitative image analysis in the areas of breast cancer, lung cancer, and bone disease
- Gilad, Yoav: Genetic basis of human-specific traits, including susceptibility to certain diseases and disorders
- Golovkina, Tatyana: Virology of retrovirus-host interactions
- Gomez, Christopher: Diagnosis, treatment, and research of degenerative ataxias
- Greene, Geoffrey: Breast cancer biology and therapies
- Grossman, Robert: Using clouds to manage and analyze the large datasets produced by next gen sequencing
- Hansel, Christian: Intrinsic plasticity and information storage in cerebellar Purkinje cells
- Hatsopoulos, Nicholas: Coding of action by motor and premotor cortical ensembles
- He, Chuan: Chemistry and mechanism of DNA/RNA repair and modification systems; Virulence and antibiotic resistance regulation
- He, Tong Chuan: BMP and Wnt regulated osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells
- Hechscher, Ellie: Studying the biology of motor circuits such as those present in spinal cords
- Horne-Badovinac, Sally: Genetic analysis of epithelial morphogenesis and organ shape
- Huang, Jun: To quantitatively understand T cell recognition, differentiation, and function in cancer and infection
- Huo, Dezheng: Molecular epidemiology of breast cancer, biomarkers for cancer detection and prognosis, cancer screening, utilization radiation therapy, and lifestyle factors for cancer in understudied populations
- Im, Hae Kyung: Developing statistical and computational methods to make sense of the vast amounts of genomic and other high dimensional data with the ultimate goal of making discoveries that can be translated into improving the health of people
- Kaufman, Matthew: Focus on the intersection of systems and computational neuroscience, with the goal of understanding how neurons work together to implement computations relevant to motor control and decision making
- Kee, Barbara: Regulation of early lymphocyte development
- Keedy, Sarah: Cognitive and emotional neural systems overlap in patients with psychiatric disorders as well as in healthy individuals
- Kline, Justin: Immune escape mechanisms in blood cancers
- Kuehn, Seppe: Building a predictive understanding of structure-function relationships in complex microbial communities
- Kupfer, Sonia: Genomics, GI cancers and health disparities
- La Riviere, Patrick: Develop image reconstruction methods optimized for specific non-contrast CT applications
- LaBelle, James: Target intracellular proteins to induce cancer cell death and control immune response
- Lengyel, Ernst Robert: Treatment and biology of ovarian cancer
- Levin, Mark: Discovery, mechanistic elucidation, and application of new methods for the preparation of bioactive compounds, with special emphasis on reactions which edit the skeleton of organic compounds at the single atom level of precision
- MacLean, Jason: Cellular basis for information storage in cortical circuits
- Margoliash, Daniel: Motor control, learning and memory
- Martinez-Cardoso, Aresha : Integrates theoretical perspectives from the social sciences with epidemiological methods in public health to examine how social factors shape population health
- Maunsell, John: How the representation of visual objects by populations of cortical neurons changes when attention is directed to those objects, and the mechanisms by which these attention-related changes are mediated
- McGehee, Daniel: Nicotinic receptors and addictions
- McNerney, Megan: Genomics of acute myeloid leukemias
- Meltzer, David: The theoretical foundations of medical cost-effectiveness analysis and the cost and quality of hospital care
- Mirmira, Raghu: Diabetes and the biology of the islet
- Moellering, Raymond: Study of complexity and dynamics in the proteome
- Moskowitz, Ivan: Genetic and molecular analysis of mouse mutants with congenital heart defects
- Mutlu, Gokhan: Studying the role of cellular metabolism including mitochondrial function of these cells in the development of acute lung injury and fibrosis
- Nobrega, Marcelo: Architecture and function of genes
- Novembre, John: Genetic variation
- Oakes, Scott: Mechanistically understanding and drugging key cell stress pathways in cancer, cell degeneration, and inflammatory diseases
- Ober, Carol: Integrating gene expression, epigenetic marks, metabolomic and microbiome data with genetic variation and GWAS results to discover and characterize asthma loci
- Odenike, Olatoyosi: Clinical and translational investigation of novel therapeutic agents for acute and chronic leukemias, myelodysplastic syndromes and chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms
- Palmer, Stephanie: How populations of neurons collectively encode information present in their inputs and how they perform computations on these signals
- Pamer, Eric: Investigating intestinal microbiota-mediated defense against infections caused by Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE),
Clostridioides difficile and Klebsiella pneumoniae - Pan, Tao: Function and regulation of t-RNA modifications
- Pearson, Alex: Machine learning for prognostic subset creation in cancer data; mathematical systems biology for combination cancer treatment optimization; and clinical head/neck cancer
- Peek, Monica: Patient/provider communication, its implications for diabetes health disparities
- Perozo, Eduardo: Energy transduction mechanisms in ion channels
- Pfister, Catherine: Marine ecology, global change, ocean acidification, species interactions, microbial ecology
- Piccirilli, Joseph: Identification and characterization of catalytic metal ions within RNA
- Pierce, Brandon: Identifying biomarkers that are related to susceptibility to environmental exposure, particularly arsenic
- Pincus, David: Yeast genetics, biochemistry, cell biology and systems biology
- Raghavan, Maanasa: Evolutionary and population genetics
- Ranganathan, Rama: Understanding the basic principles of structure, function, and adaptability in evolving systems, ranging from atomic to ecosystem scales.
- Rebay, Ilaria: Understand how signaling networks, cytoskeletal dynamics and tissue geometry work together to direct specific developmental decisions
- Reid, Russell: Craniofacial tissue engineering
- Riesenfeld, Samantha: Develop and apply machine learning methods to investigate the cellular components, transcriptional circuitry, and dynamics underlying complex biological systems
- Romero, Iris: Developing new agents for gynecologic cancer prevention and treatment.
- Rosner, Marsha: To understand fundamental signaling mechanisms leading to the generation of tumor cells and their progression to metastatic disease, particularly in triple-negative breast cancer that lacks targeted therapies.
- Roux, Benoit: Understanding of the structure and function of ion channels.
- Rust, Michael: Microbial cell metabolism and behavior
- Saunders, Milda: Socio-economic and health system barriers for patients with CKD; Neighbor-hood SES and Maternal Diabetes; Access to high quality care for older patients
- Savage, Peter: Mechanisms regulating immune response to cancer
- Sosnick, Tobin: Biophysics of protein folding
- Spitz, Francois: Understanding how the information that implements specific and robust gene expression programs is encoded in the genome, particularly in the context of vertebrate embryonic development and human diseases.
- Squires, Allison: Single-Molecule Biophysics, Biomedical Devices, Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Imaging, Nanoscale Manipulation and Sensing
- Staley, Jon: To understand the mechanism and regulation of nuclear pre-mRNA splicing, an essential step in eukaryotic gene expression.
- Stephens, Matthew: To produce statistical software that will be useful to scientific researchers in analyzing their own data
- Tay, Savas: To understand how cells process information in complex environments
- Thornton, Joseph: To understand the evolution of ligand specificity and allosteric regulation of protein activity by ligand binding
- Tian, Bozhi: Developing tools for quantitative understanding of how biomaterials interact with cellular systems, how they transduce signals, and how we can intervene these interactions at a molecular level
- VanDrongelen, Wim: Neural processing and epileptiform activity patterns
- Vochenboum, Samuel: Analyzing and modeling neuronal systems, and associated clinical applications
- Weber, Christopher: To investigate mechanisms of epithelial barrier dysfunction in intestinal disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease
- Wei, Wei: To understand the dendritic-, synaptic- and circuit-level mechanisms of visual processing in the retina
- Weichselbaum, Ralph: To study patterns of gene expression in human tumors that confer resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy
- Yang, Lixing: Developing novel methods for exploring large-scale cancer sequencing data, integrating multi-dimensionalomics datasets to identify potential driver events, and inferring mutational mechanisms leading to these alterations
- Zhang, Xiaochang: To understand molecular and organismal functions of cell-type-specific RNA splicing in neocortex development, and to translate our knowledge to diagnose and treat neurodevelop mental disorders such as autism and epilepsy
- Zhao, Minglei: To investigate the structure and function of molecular machines involved in post-transcriptional and post-translational modifications