# MGHfC Digestive Disease Summer Research Program

> **NIH NIH R25** · MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL · 2022 · $108,000

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
In 2015, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children (MGHfC) established the MGHfC Digestive Disease
Summer Research Program with the objective of providing short-term support for 10 undergraduate and/or
medical students to conduct mentor-supervised independent research in the setting of a research-oriented
teaching hospital. Students perform an independent research project focused on digestive diseases on a full-
time basis over a ten-week period during the summer months within a laboratory or collaborating laboratory of
MGHfC faculty. Collaborating laboratories of the MGHfC are laboratories within the Massachusetts General
Hospital (MGH) community that possess unique expertise in engineering and computational sciences currently
being leveraged to support various projects centered on digestive disease research. In addition to conducting
an independent project to be formally presented at a summer's end symposium, each student participates in a
peer-driven biomedical course entitled “Immunity, Microbes, & the Mucosa” as well as a panel discussion on
careers in biomedicine facilitated by faculty and biomedical professionals. Currently 22 MGH independent
investigators with interest in digestive diseases serve as mentors and have hosted students in their
laboratories since 2015. An advisory board that includes the program director, associate director, and a faculty
member is responsible for overseeing the program as well as recruiting and selecting participating students
each summer. The MGHfC Digestive Disease Summer Program has recruited approximately fifty students
from regions throughout the United States since its inception and this proposal seeks funding to support the
continuation of this program with the objective of recruiting and training at least fifty additional students over
the next five years. Several former students are of backgrounds under-represented in biomedical science
careers and strategies are in place to continue to recruit this vital cohort of future researchers into the field of
digestive diseases. Our goal is to continue to immerse undergraduates and medical students in a structured
and intensive research experience that will serve to encourage them to continually seek opportunities to
develop their scientific and research skills as they move forward in their careers and inspire them to ultimately
become part of and thereby reinforce the biomedical research workforce.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10360503
- **Project number:** 5R25DK103579-08
- **Recipient organization:** MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** BRYAN P HURLEY
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $108,000
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2015-03-01 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10360503

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10360503, MGHfC Digestive Disease Summer Research Program (5R25DK103579-08). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10360503. Licensed CC0.

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