HBTM Program Description

The field of human biology and translational medicine has roots in human physiology and pathophysiology, molecular biology, human genetics, pharmacology, biological chemistry, pathology, chemical biology, systems biology, and clinical medicine. The new Harvard Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine provides training in a discipline that combines the understanding of the basic scientific mechanisms of human biology and disease with its translation into clinical medicine. This new graduate program both builds on and enhances current efforts in human biology and disease-oriented research at HMS, FAS, and Harvard-affiliated institutions. The Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine is configured within the Programs in Biological and Biomedical Sciences within the Division of Medical Sciences at Harvard Medical School.

The Program in HBTM is created as a partner to the new Leder Program in Medical Sciences, within the Programs in Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) and within the overall structure of the Harvard Division of Medical Sciences (DMS) and Harvard Integrated Life Sciences (HILS). The Leder Medical Sciences Program is a new program that provides graduate students in current HILS programs with additional course work in pathology, pathophysiology and pharmacology, as well as an exposure to patients. These enrichment experiences provide a biomedical context for graduate students selected from current HILS programs; the students then pursue their thesis work in established basic research laboratories. The Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine assumes a different but complementary paradigm: the central research focus for students and faculty in this program is the study of human disease states and the identification of improved means for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Thus, the Leder Medical Sciences Program and the proposed Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine have distinct if complementary goals, and leaders from both programs have worked closely together in the formulation of this proposal for the creation of the PHBTM.

The Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine differs from current Harvard graduate programs in its curriculum, context, and community:

The curriculum of this Program has a central focus on providing rigorous training in the fundamental mechanisms and essential methodologies of human biology and disease-oriented translational research. Four new courses form the curricular foundation for the Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine: Genomics and Phenomics; Cellular Metabolism and Human Disease; Pharmacology: The Pathophysiological Basis of Therapeutics; and a January-term course ”Discovery in Human Biology and Translational Medicine.” The newly developed Cellular Metabolism and Human Disease course (directed by Thomas Michel), offered for the first time in Spring 2007, represents the prototype for courses offered by the HBTM Program. Another new course, “Discovery in Human Biology and Translational Medicine,” is directed by Jeffrey Drazen, and is projected to be offered for the first time in January 2008.
Program faculty and trainees are immersed in the context of human disease-oriented translational research using the experimental paradigms of genomic/proteomic, cellular, organismal, and population-based approaches to the study of clinical therapeutics and disease prevention. The HBTM Program also provides instruction in the design and quantitative analysis of human trials useful for defining new approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of human disease.
Many HBTM faculty have not previously participated in graduate training at Harvard, yet these faculty lead internationally-recognized, robust research programs that provide rigorous training in human biology and disease-oriented translational research. The HBTM Program creates a community of students and faculty that share common goals of applying rigorous methodologies to the translation of basic discoveries to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of human disease. The faculty in the Program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine includes scientists pursuing human disease-oriented translational research in the HMS Quadrangle, at all major HMS-affiliated hospitals and research centers, and on the Harvard University campus.

For information on HBTM faculty and their wide range of fields of study in the human diseases, click here.

For information on Academic Administration, Program Advising, and other BBS-associated information for the HBTM program, please go to Academic Administration