NIH-Oxford-Cambridge Biomedical Scholars Program

Dear Colleague,

We would like to bring to your attention to the NIH-Oxford-Cambridge Biomedical Scholars Program, an interdisciplinary, accelerated training program with some innovative features that may appeal to your top students. Since 2001, scientists at NIH have collaborated with colleagues in Oxford and Cambridge to create a partnership PhD training program spanning the full breadth of research in these institutions. Every student admitted to the program is fully funded for the length of training.

When compared with traditional U.S. PhD programs, the NIH-Oxford-Cambridge partnership is designed to significantly reduce the time it takes to earn the doctoral degree. Our partnership students generally earn their degrees in four years, and graduates are easily obtaining excellent post-doc positions, faculty appointments, and positions with biotech companies, to name a few of the opportunities awaiting these highly qualified individuals.

As we work to recruit the Class of 2010, we will be searching for highly self-directed students with significant research experience who are ready to focus on a particular dimension of biomedical research in their chosen fields of study. Each year, we receive applications from the nation’s top science students. Additionally, the NIH has cultivated agreements with the Rhodes Trust, the Marshall Commission, and the Churchill and Gates Cambridge scholarships, enabling these talented scholars to extend their master’s degree programs into a PhD with a U.S. lab component. The program is also compatible with the NIH MD/PhD Partnership Training Program, which offers funding for combined M.D./Ph.D. training in collaboration with over twenty U.S. medical schools participating in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). We have admitted numerous HHMI Scholars into the M.D./Ph.D. Program via the program’s Track 2 admissions pathway. For details about the M.D./Ph.D. options and training tracks, please consult http://gpp.nih.gov/Prospective/InstitutionalPartnerships/MSTPatNIH/ .

Students admitted to the program choose a research project from a pre-existing list of collaborations (see our web site for the list) or are free to design their own project, often bridging different disciplines. They write a detailed research proposal during their first summer in the program and begin their thesis research immediately. We require that Scholars spend two years at the NIH and two years in the UK, working in the labs of their chosen mentors. They earn the doctoral degree from whichever UK institution they select for their doctoral work.

The application deadline for 2010 is January 4^th, so please forward the email below and enclosed flyers to interested students. We would also greatly appreciate it if you would post the flyers at appropriate locations on campus.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me. More information can be found at the program website (http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov)

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Dear Prospective Student,

I am writing to tell you about a groundbreaking biomedical research doctoral program—the National Institutes of Health-Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program. This innovative program grew from the realization that the next generation of research scientists will increasingly need to adopt interdisciplinary approaches as they strive to produce high impact research outcomes whether basic or clinical.

This is an accelerated program, and students typically receive a doctoral degree in approximately four years. There is no standard curriculum or required coursework. Rather, each student pursues an individualized course of study in which thesis work is initiated at the beginning of the first year. The thesis project is carried out as a collaboration between two labs, with half the research undertaken at NIH and half at one of the UK universities and each student being mentored by a senior scientist at each location. The program takes advantage of the superb resources and training environments at Oxford, Cambridge, and the NIH, the world’s largest biomedical research facility, the main campus of which is located in Bethesda, Maryland where a diverse community of scientists conduct their research in over 1000 laboratories and the world’s largest clinical research center conducts more than 1000 clinical research protocols.

>From its first class that matriculated in 2001, NIH-Oxford-Cambridge Scholars have achieved at the highest levels of biomedical research, publishing first-author papers in journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Immunology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and The Journal of Experimental Medicine. Graduates have gone on to do post-doctoral training in top academic institutions and industry labs, and a few have gone directly to faculty positions.

All students are fully funded by the NIH for the duration of their doctoral work at both research sites and receive a stipend, health insurance, and travel assistance. Through the NIH M.D./Ph.D Partnership Training Program, we also offer funding for combined M.D./Ph.D. training in collaboration with over twenty U.S. medical schools participating in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP). This option may be of interest to those of you already enrolled in medical school point or applying to traditional MD/PhD programs this year. For details about the M.D./Ph.D. options and training tracks please consult http://gpp.nih.gov/Prospective/InstitutionalPartnerships/MSTPatNIH/ .

The application deadline for Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. candidates is January 4th, 2010. The free application is available online through the program website at http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov via the “Apply Now” button. On our web site you will find additional program details, FAQs, student biographies, descriptions of some of the exciting research projects underway, and more. We would also like to invite you to participate in a teleconference call to learn more about our programs. Please email us at oxcam@mail.nih.gov or mdphd@mail.nih.gov if you would like more information or would like to participate in a conference call.

Please take a look at the flyers through the links below and feel free to contact me if you have any questions. We hope to hear from you soon!

http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov/prospectiveStudents/documents/OXCAM2010Flyerwdeadline.pdf
http://oxcam.gpp.nih.gov/prospectiveStudents/documents/MSTPflyer2010.pdf

All the best,


Michael Lenardo, M.D.

Program Director

NIH-Oxford Cambridge Scholars Program

Richard Siegel, M.D., Ph.D.

Program Director

NIH M.D./Ph.D. Partnership Training Program

Bridget Lampert, M.S. Ed

Managing Director
NIH-Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program
NIH M.D./Ph.D. Partnership Training Program
(301) 496-6083