# Indiana Medical Scientist/Engineer Training Program

> **NIH NIH T32** · INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS · 2020 · $740,762

## Abstract

Nationally, trends suggest that there are diminishing numbers of academic physician investigators.
Thus, there is a need to train a cadre of future scientists who can link their research to clinical care to address
the trends, causes, and treatment of disease. The Indiana University Medical Scientist/Engineer Training
Program (MSTP) was conceived to meet this need, and this application represents the second competitive
renewal of the Indiana MSTP since its funding almost 9 years ago. A notable aspect of our program is the
integration of faculty within the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University to include the
exceptional training of physician engineers. The Aims of our MSTP are:
 (1) To recruit a competitive pool of students from diverse ethnic and regional backgrounds who
espouse a strong commitment to both research and patient care.
 (2) To engage students in a training pathway that integrates a productive basic/translational research
component with a next-generation systems-based medical training curriculum that reinforces commitment and
minimizes attrition to develop a community of scholars equipped to succeed as physician investigators.
 (3) To graduate students with dual MD-PhD degrees who will be competitive for residency and post-
doctoral funding at the best academic medical centers throughout the country.
 To achieve these aims, we have taken the necessary steps to grow and advance our program over the
past 10 years to its current level of 57 students. This programmatic growth is bolstered by support from the
MSTP T32 and a dedicated $10M endowment to the program. Our program emphasizes coursework that
broadens research training at the bench with quantitative skills, provides opportunities for public speaking,
provides a range of enriching extracurricular opportunities, and allows for integration of medicine and
science/engineering throughout all years of training. Defined oversight mechanisms are in place to track the
progress of trainees throughout the program. With the help of our outreach activities and the MSTP
designation, our program notoriety has grown tremendously, as evidenced by a 100% increase in our applicant
pool over the past 10 years and the remarkable diversity of our current student pool (17% underrepresented,
74% from out-of-state). In this competitive renewal application, we will build upon our successes and to make
the necessary programmatic adjustments going forward to ensure that our trainees continue to be prepared to
become future scientists and engineers who pioneer advances in medical practice through research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9954092
- **Project number:** 5T32GM077229-13
- **Recipient organization:** INDIANA UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Benjamin Gaston
- **Activity code:** T32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $740,762
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2008-07-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9954092

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9954092, Indiana Medical Scientist/Engineer Training Program (5T32GM077229-13). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9954092. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*