NIH Summer Program
The NIH T35 Integrated Summer Research Program is a 10 to 11-week, full-time summer research program, offered at the end of the first year of medical school. The program’s goal is to provide medical students – with and without prior research experience – an opportunity to conduct basic or clinical biomedical research under the supervision of Columbia University faculty.
The program is open to medical and dental students at Columbia University. On occasion, this program also accepts medical students from other institutions.
In addition to conducting research, participants attend a weekly seminar series that includes topics in biomedical research & research ethics. At the end of the summer, students present their findings to their peers and mentors at the Student Research Symposium.
The program is supported by three NIH T35 Short-term Institutional Research Training Grants. The primary focuses of the T35 grants are:
- NHLBI-funded T35 grant (T35HL007616): Cardiovascular disease, Pulmonary disease, Hematology, & stem cells
- NIDDK-funded T35 grant (T35DK093430): Diabetes, obesity, & kidney, digestive, and endocrine diseases
- NIA-funded T35 grant (T35AG044303): Neuroscience, Neuropathology, & aging
The program is also funded by VP&S Office of Medical Education; the research supported by these funds is not restricted to specific disease area. Projects related to orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, and obstetrics and gynecology are typically funded by the Office of Medical Education.
The stipend amount is approximately $5400 but varies slightly from year to year depending on the precise amount determined annually by NIH.
Stipends are disbursed in two installments. The first disbursement is for approximately $4400 and the 2nd is $1000. The first installment is usually deposited by the end of June. Once all students within each group have completed their exit requirements and turned in their research reports, the 2nd stipend will be released. This is usually accomplished by September.
Our Teams
Administration
Sivanthy Vasanthan
- Program Coordinator
NHLBI Team
Rudolph Leibel, MD
- Principal Investigator
Dr. Rudolph Leibel, MD, is Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Medicine, and is Co-Director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Molecular Genetics. His research focuses on the genetics of obesity and noninsulin-dependent diabetes. His laboratory has mapped, cloned, and identified mutations in the obese and fatty genes in rats, mice, and, mllore recently, in humans. The obese gene encodes leptin, an adipose derived hormone responsible for regulating body weight, whereas the fatty gene encodes the leptin receptor. Currently, his research group is defining the physiological bases by which this and related signaling networks regulate body size and composition. For example, changes in leptin production following reduction in body fat might play a role in the metabolic changes that accompany weight loss in humans. Dr. Leibel's laboratory is also working to isolate additional rodent genes that influence body weight and the susceptibility to noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus in the context of obesity. Laboratory members have extended their genetic studies to search for similar obesity and diabetes related genes in human families.
Markus Mapara, MD
- Principal Investigator
Dr. Mapara is Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and the Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplantation (BMT). Dr. Mapara graduated from the University of Heidelberg Medical School/Germany, and received his post-graduate training in Internal Medicine and Hematology/Oncology at the Universities of Heidelberg and the University Medical Center Charite of the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. In addition, he completed a research fellowship at the Transplantation Biology Research Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. As Assistant Professor of Medicine, he headed the Hematologic Intensive Care Unit and served as deputy director of the Stem Cell Transplantation unit at the University Medical Center Charité in Berlin, Germany. Before coming to Columbia, Dr. Mapara was Associate Professor of Medicine (with tenure) at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and served as the Director of the Adult Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Program.
NIDDK Team
Qais Al-Awqati
- Principal Investigator
Dr. Qais Al-Awqati is the Jay I. Meltzer Professor of Nephrology and Hypertension and the Robert F. Loeb Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and has served as Chief of the Nephrology Division at Columbia since 1978. Dr. Al-Awqati focuses his research on the mechanism of differentiation of epithelial cells in the kidney and throughout the body.
Dr. Al-Awqati also serves as an editor for scientific journals, including Science, the Journal of Cell Biology, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Kidney International, and is a member of the editorial boards of many other publications. Dr. Qais Al-Awqati is the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of his research, including the NIH MERIT Award, the Columbia Triennial Award in Science, the Robert W. Berliner Prize of the American Physiological Society, and the Homer W. Smith Award of the American Society of Nephrology.
Dr. Qais Al-Awqati received his medical degree from the University of Baghdad College of Medicine. At a time when Iraq was suffering from the first major epidemic of cholera in its modern history, Dr. Al-Awqati, then a resident in medicine, established a hospital specifically for the treatment of cholera patients. This hospital was so successful in its treatment of cholera that only one patient succumbed to the disease, out of more than 400 patients admitted.
Jaime Rubin
- Vice Chair for Investigator Development
Jaime S. Rubin, Ph.D., has held a number of senior level positions at Columbia University Medical Center, including Acting Associate Dean for Graduate Affairs, having served as the founding Director of the Office of Graduate Affairs. She also served as Acting Associate Vice President/Acting Associate Dean for Research Administration, having served as one of the founders of the Office of Research Administration. She is currently the Vice Chair for Investigator Development in the Department of Medicine where she also holds a faculty position.
Rubin's Ph.D. thesis, published in the journal Nature described the first molecular identification and characterization of a human DNA repair gene.
NIA Team
James Noble, MD, MS
- Principal Investigator
Dr. Noble completed his undergraduate studies in math and chemistry at Vanderbilt University, followed by medical school at Emory University. His graduate medical training included internal medicine internship, neurology residency including chief resident in neurology, and neuroepidemiology and behavioral neurology fellowship, all at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Accordingly, he is board certified in neurology, behavioral neurology & neuropsychiatry, and public health.
Dr. Noble primarily sees patients with dementia but is also involved in multidisciplinary clinical and research efforts to support patients with persistent post-concussive symptoms. Dr. Noble is fluent in Spanish and his comprehensive approach to care views the patient within the entire family dynamic, with particular focus on disadvantaged communities.
Dr. Noble is also a recognized neurologic educator at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons, having held leadership positions as a current or former lead of its neurology clerkship, preclinical neuroscience training and summer research training programs. He has received an AAN A.B. Baker Teacher Recognition Award and is a scholar in Columbia’s Virginia Apgar Teaching Academy. Aside from his clinical work and commitment to neurologic education, Dr. Noble directs and supports several longitudinal NIH-supported research initiatives related to Columbia’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, all of which aim to identify novel lifecourse modifiable risk factors for cognitive aging and means to improve public health literacy.
His professional leadership has been recognized by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). He was an inaugural member of the AAN Emerging Leaders Program and is a Fellow of the AAN. He is the co-editor of the 14th edition of Merritt’s Neurology, a standard global neurology textbook. He is the author of Navigating Life with Dementia, a handbook for dementia caregivers. Dr. Noble co-founded Arts & Minds, a non-profit organization promoting well-being for dementia patients and their caregivers via art-centered experiences, as well as NoMo Diagnostics, which aims to better diagnose concussion with technology Dr. Noble and others developed at Columbia University.
Sachin Agarwal, MD, MPH, FAHA
- Principal Investigator
Sachin Agarwal is an associate professor of neurology and neurocritical care at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in NY. Dr. Agarwal completed his neurology residency and neurocritical care fellowship at Columbia University. He holds a master’s degree in Clinical Epidemiology and biostatistics from The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Agarwal is the founder and the Director of NeuroCardiac Comprehensive Care Clinic (N4C), the first of its kind in the United States. It is a “One-Stop-Shop” that offers comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, well-coordinated care for survivors of cardiac arrest. He is the founder and director of Community Development- Resuscitation Education AED and CPR Training (CD-REACT) to impart life-saving skills to the underserved community and high school students in the areas of Harlem, Bronx, and Washington Heights.
Dr. Agarwal is an NIH-funded physician-scientist and an outcomes researcher. His research interests lie in characterizing the neurological, psychological, and health-behavioral dimensions of cardiac arrest survivorship, and their association with cardiovascular disease risk, functional outcomes, and quality of life. His more recent work involves designing behavioral interventions to alleviate heart-specific anxiety and posttraumatic symptoms of survivors and their families. Dr. Agarwal is the author of over 150 original articles and is a fellow of the American Heart Association.
Jennifer J. Manly, PhD
- Professor of Neuropsychology (in Neurology, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain)
Serge Przedborski, MD, PhD
- Principal Investigator
Dr. Przedborski's academic interests focus on the molecular and cellular biology of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). His ongoing research aims at understanding the contributions of cell-autonomous and non cell-autonomous mechanisms to neurodegeneration using both toxic and genetic experimental models of PD and ALS. In keeping with this goal, how alterations in mitochondrial biology, especially of mitochondrial dynamics and mitophagy, provoke degeneration of specific subpopulations of neurons is one of the main areas of research in the Przedborski laboratory. To what extent and by which mechanisms do non-neuronal cells, like microglia and astrocytes, participate in the demise of neurons in neurodegenerative disorders, such as PD and ALS, represent a second main line of research in this laboratory.
These research efforts are supported by federal grants from both NIH and the DoD as well as by several private agencies such as the Parkinson's Disease Foundation and the Thomas Hartman Foundation. Dr. Przedborski is a Senior Editor for the Journal of Neuroscience and an Associate Editor of Movement Disorders. He also serves as an ad hoc Reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Adminsration, the Department of Defense, the Canadian Medical Research Council, and various medical journals including Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA.
