MD/PhD for Micro/Virology

[redr0ck]

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I'm interested in pursuing an MD/PhD in an area related to infectious disease. What programs are well-known for strong micro (particularly virology) research?

Thanks in advance!

 

[beyondthewheel]

University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Alabama-Birmingham, and U Penn come to my mind. I'm sure some others on here could give you a much more detailed answer, however.

 

[cpi89]

Well, if you go by 2013 NIH funding levels for Microbiology (http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2013/Microbiology_2013.xls), the list looks like this:

1 OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY $23,258,618
2 HARVARD UNIVERSITY (MEDICAL SCHOOL) $22,589,861
3 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON $21,438,417
4 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA $18,811,514
5 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BR GALVESTON $18,674,919
6 YALE UNIVERSITY $18,220,662
7 EMORY UNIVERSITY $14,414,302
8 UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL $14,115,266
9 ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE $13,411,713
10 THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY $13,029,821
11 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN $12,921,972
12 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE $12,751,449
13 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY $12,619,102
14 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES $12,615,318
15 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO $12,560,002
16 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE $12,352,267
17 MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE $11,356,362
18 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA $10,495,064
19 STANFORD UNIVERSITY $10,251,974
20 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS $9,937,620
21 UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT SCH OF MED/DNT $9,815,048
22 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO $9,774,908
23 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE $8,940,262
24 WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV $8,927,643
25 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY $8,833,641

I might disagree with the order of some of these though. OHSU, for example, likely is at the top because of the funding it gets for the Oregon National Primate Center but not necessarily for R01's. Same thing for UTMB and the biocontainment center there.

 

[mTORC]

Well, if you go by 2013 NIH funding levels for Microbiology (http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2013/Microbiology_2013.xls), the list looks like this:

1 OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY $23,258,618
2 HARVARD UNIVERSITY (MEDICAL SCHOOL) $22,589,861
3 UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON $21,438,417
4 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA $18,811,514
5 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BR GALVESTON $18,674,919
6 YALE UNIVERSITY $18,220,662
7 EMORY UNIVERSITY $14,414,302
8 UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL $14,115,266
9 ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE $13,411,713
10 THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY $13,029,821
11 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN $12,921,972
12 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE $12,751,449
13 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY $12,619,102
14 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES $12,615,318
15 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO $12,560,002
16 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE $12,352,267
17 MOUNT SINAI SCHOOL OF MEDICINE $11,356,362
18 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA $10,495,064
19 STANFORD UNIVERSITY $10,251,974
20 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS $9,937,620
21 UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT SCH OF MED/DNT $9,815,048
22 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO $9,774,908
23 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE $8,940,262
24 WEILL MEDICAL COLL OF CORNELL UNIV $8,927,643
25 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY $8,833,641

I might disagree with the order of some of these though. OHSU, for example, likely is at the top because of the funding it gets for the Oregon National Primate Center but not necessarily for R01's. Same thing for UTMB and the biocontainment center there.

I wonder how accurate or dated this list is? Where is Hopkins, a microbio powerhouse, and is WashU actually that low? When I interviewed there, they have an enormous building with probably 80 or 90 pi's in micro.

EDIT: it could be how the faculty are designated; for instance, they may fall within immunology (?) instead of microbio. No idea.

 

[gutonc]

Well, if you go by 2013 NIH funding levels for Microbiology (http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2013/Microbiology_2013.xls), the list looks like this:

I might disagree with the order of some of these though. OHSU, for example, likely is at the top because of the funding it gets for the Oregon National Primate Center but not necessarily for R01's. Same thing for UTMB and the biocontainment center there.

Not be pedantic but there is a big vaccine and gene therapy research institute at OHSU that probably accounts for a lot of it as well. That said, the VGTI is on the same campus as the Primate center.

 

[cpi89]

Gutonc: Yea, that whole complex is essentially what I was referring to.

I'm not attesting to the accuracy of the list. It's supposedly from 2013. I also find Hopkin's absence to be a little odd. The list and order probably change with how you define "Microbiology" and what study sections are included in those numbers.

If you go to NIH report and sort NIAID funding (total, not just microbiology related) by institution, the list starts to look more familiar.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY $86,454,337
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO $73,364,401
DUKE UNIVERSITY $68,632,149
SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE $61,110,808
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON $59,464,521
UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL $58,250,460
EMORY UNIVERSITY $57,143,297
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA $50,739,931
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSP $47,460,822
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA $47,129,875
FRED HUTCHINSON CAN RES CTR $46,661,326
BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL $37,793,894
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE $35,297,846
YALE UNIVERSITY $35,009,345
UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS MED SCH $34,414,577
HARVARD UNIVERSITY (MEDICAL SCHOOL) $34,252,849
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY $34,183,392
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL BR GALVESTON $33,706,788
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH $33,526,803
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA $32,684,433

But now Stanford's gone with it's lowly 30 million some dollars in NIAID funding. How plebeian of them.

It starts to get rather semantic at some point. This doesn't include a lot of variables. For example, funding doesn't imply strength of a graduate program and this leaves out funding from private endowments as well (which would move WashU up considerably I would imagine).

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

I'm interested in pursuing an MD/PhD in an area related to infectious disease. What programs are well-known for strong micro (particularly virology) research?

Thanks in advance!

I think most of the "broadly" top programs are going to be strong across the biological specialties. This would include places like Rockefeller (tri-I in your case), UCSF, Duke, Harvard, Yale, etc. I think what you really want to know is what places that are not as "big name" have very strong ID/micro research or potential. I think those are more places like Vanderbilt, Emory, etc.

Maybe one place to start would be to download the latest set of PLOS Pathogens or a comparable journal and see where the authorship is based. Sure, you'll get lots in New Zealand and Japan and Denmark, but I'm sure that going through a few issues would give you a better grasp of what schools have a lot of strong investigators in micro-ID.

I'd suggest also that you take a good look at immunology and pharmacology programs since there's a lot of obvious overlap and I could see you transitioning just as easily from a strong immuno PhD into vaccine research or a pharm PhD into antivirals/new antimycobacterials/etc. as you could from a micro-viro PhD.

 

[Fencer]

There are some institutions/potential supervising professors not included into the NIH funding rankings of SOM Departments. For example, VA or DOD research, other major hospital affiliates (like in the case of the Harvard program), or self standing research institutes (such as the Texas Biomedical Research Institute). For Virology, you might want to look at the locations of BSL-4 facilities. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level#Biosafety_level_4