Basic and Translational Sciences Track

The overall mission of the MD-PhD Program at Harvard Medical School is to train the next generation of leading physician-scientists, with representation across a variety of clinical disciplines and research areas from basic and translational sciences to bioengineering to the social sciences.

The MD-PhD Program seeks to provide entering students with a thorough and up-to-date medical education combined with research training in laboratories of premier investigators at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Students pursuing research in basic science or disease-oriented research typically enter the basic translational sciences track of the program. These students begin their training in the summer before the first year of medical school by taking a course called “Molecular Biology of Human Disease.” This class is especially designed to introduce the entering MD-PhD students to current disease-oriented research problems in the biomedical sciences, and to develop their critical thinking skills. After the summer course, the education of the students usually follows a “2-4-2” model. The students join the entering medical school class to complete the preclinical years of medical school through either the HST or the New Pathway curriculum, followed by an anchoring clinical experience before entering the graduate phase of the program. During the first two years, students also try to meet some of the classroom requirements for the PhD within the constraints of the pre-clinical curriculum. In the graduate phase of the program, dissertation research can be carried out in any of a number of different departments or programs at Harvard or MIT, including biological, epidemiology and biomedical sciences, mathematics, physics, and various branches of engineering and chemistry. After defending their theses, students return to HMS for their last two years of clinical rotations to complete the M.D. degree. To ease the transition back to the clinic, the program offers a Longitudinal Course in Clinical Medicine.

The program provides academic and mentoring support to approximately 175 students, taking advantage of a large, committed faculty. Poster sessions, annual retreats, informal dinners with faculty, and the “Leaders in Biomedicine” seminar series both build cohesion among the students in the program, and also foster mentoring relationships between students and faculty dedicated to the program.

For information about admissions and funding, click here

Updated: April 29, 2013