Biomedical Graduate Education

GAINING EXPERIENCE, GALVANIZING DISCOVERY

Behind each advance in health care is a scientific breakthrough…and behind most breakthroughs are graduate students driving that innovation. Recruited from top programs across the country, UCLA’s Ph.D. students choose laboratories and faculty mentors that match their interests. Under their mentors’ supervision, they gain hands-on experience in frontline work that fuels basic discovery and clinical research.

Take doctoral student Courtney Young, who chose to research Duchenne muscular dystrophy after her cousin’s diagnosis with the genetic disorder. “It makes everything a lot more meaningful, knowing that I’m doing something to help all the boys who will come after my cousin,” she says. “I feel like I’m contributing, and I’m excited because the field of Duchenne research is advancing in a really positive direction.” Young’s contributions have made a difference: She worked with two professors to generate the first human stem cells that restore affected muscle tissue. Their study has put the promising treatment on track for future clinical trials in humans.

Recognizing the role of graduate work in advancing medicine, universities provide tuition and living expenses for Ph.D. students. At UCLA, annual costs per student approached $50,000 in 2016. Traditionally, these costs are covered by federal research grants to faculty, but the landscape is changing rapidly. Today, budget shortfalls often limit the National Institutes of Health to funding fewer than 10 percent of proposals, and funded projects tend to take incremental steps that are far less risky … with less potential reward.

That’s why philanthropy is more critical than ever to scientific discovery. Your gift to the Biomedical Graduate Education fund will give graduate students the “venture capital” to take on timely, compelling questions; risk exciting, audacious, creative solutions; and make great strides in advancing health care. By supporting rising researchers, you can help spur the next breakthrough for humanity’s benefit.