PASADENA—The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation has awarded the California Institute of Technology $630,000 to support a joint MD/PhD program with the University of Southern California.
The grant will establish the Norris Foundation MD/PhD Scholars Fund, which will support Caltech PhD candidates from the University of Southern California medical school in the groundbreaking program. The joint MD/PhD program will allow both schools to attract the nation's best graduate students interested in medically related research. It will also enhance the Caltech scientific community by attracting students who have a substantial knowledge of human physiology and disease, and will contribute to society by producing researchers whose discoveries will directly impact and improve human health.
Administered by Caltech in cooperation with USC, the program will accept two students each year. Students will spend their first two years in medical school, taking preclinical science courses, with summers spent at Caltech gaining exposure to the academic research environment. They will then come to Caltech, spending three to five years on their PhDs before returning to their medical school for the final two clinical years.
The program will allow students to take advantage of Caltech's numerous strengths, including its world-class neuroscience group, its top-ranked chemistry and chemical engineering division, and its innovative programs in engineering and in computer and applied science. Caltech's atmosphere of interdisciplinary research, in which scientists from different divisions trade ideas on a regular basis, is also a feature that MD/PhD students will not find elsewhere.
The first two USC students are already at Caltech, having completed their two preclinical years at the medical school. One is working with Professor Paul Sternberg, a molecular biologist who is studying genes that control behavior during cell development, a subject that has great implications for cancer treatment, and eventually perhaps prevention. The second student will be working with Professor Morteza Gharib, who is an aeronautical engineer. Gharib has established the Cardiovascular Fluid Dynamics Research Laboratory, an interdisciplinary environment for studying blood flow that may lead to the development of better heart valves and coronary artery prostheses.
The Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation was established in 1963 by the late Kenneth T. Norris, the founder of Norris Industries, and his late wife, Eileen L. Norris. Since its inception, the foundation has extended support to a wide variety of cultural, medical, civic, and educational projects in California. Today the Norris Foundation continues to allocate a large portion of its resources to medicine and education but encompasses a broader agenda—one that also includes community and youth programs, science, and the arts.
Written by Sue McHugh