Zucker School of Medicine receives $1.8 million grant to train physician-scientists

The Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine, a medical school jointly founded by Hofstra University and Northwell Health, has received a $1.8 million award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The five-year Medical Scientist Training Program Grant (MSTP) will support the medical school’s M.D./Ph.D. program.

Students attending the joint program have the opportunity to complete the Ph.D. portion at either the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research or Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSH Lab). They may conduct research in fields that include cellular and molecular pathway exploration, bioelectronic medicine, outcomes research, neuroscience, behavioral science, and stem cell biology.

The joint M.D./Ph.D. program helps to train physician-scientists, said Betty Diamond, M.D., the program director for the Zucker School of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. program and director of the Institute of Medical Research at Northwell’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.

Diamond told Managed Healthcare Executive that the first year’s grant has been received, and the funding will be used for tuition and stipends for students in the organization’s combined training program. “This is a milestone for the medical school, confirming that we rank with the best programs in the country with respect to training future physician-scientists,” she said.

Feinstein Institutes is the research home of Northwell Health, a healthcare system in New York. At the Feinstein Institutes, students have their choice of learning across its six institutes, 50 research labs, where 3,000 clinical research studies are conducted among 5,000 researchers and staff.

Northwell Health and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have had an affiliation since 2015 and have launched new education initiatives and expanded access to clinical trials. The agreement was expanded in 2024 to translate biomedical research in cancer to possible treatments. The CSH Lab, home to eight Nobel Prize winners, offers a program that hosts more than 12,000 scientists worldwide.

In the United States, there are about 120 combined M.D./Ph.D. programs across 44 states. Of these programs, 56 receive funding from the NIH, according to the National Association of Clinician Scientist Training. The Medical Scientist Training Program Grant is an annual program of the National Institutes of Health that aims to support organizations with a combined program. Grants can be used to offset the cost of stipends, tuition and fees, and training-related expenses, including health insurance. Grants are awarded for five years and are renewable.

Currently, the NIH’s program division for workforce training, including undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral programs, has 606 active awards that total $241.83 million.

Organizations that apply for the Medical Science Training Program have to submit a description of their program, students, faculty, and the curriculum, and applications are peer-reviewed.