Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) awarded $587,371 to Ponce Medical School Foundation Inc. on July 1, 2026, under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859) to establish the PRI-PHSU T32 Graduate Training Program in Biomedical Sciences. This five-year project, concluding June 30, 2031, delivers a rigorous, mentor-intensive doctoral training initiative designed to expand biomedical research workforce development in Puerto Rico, an IDEA-eligible region currently lacking NIH T32 predoctoral training programs. The program provides comprehensive training support to 10 doctoral trainees annually across cancer biology, neuroscience, infectious disease, chronic disease modeling, and translational medicine, with each trainee receiving two years of T32 support beginning in their first year of the PhD program.

The training program delivers structured services including a milestone-driven curriculum, NIH-style proposal development instruction, reproducibility-centered research protocols, and embedded professional development activities. Faculty mentors from five divisions provide mentorship with documented NIH funding and strong publication records. The program incorporates individual development plans, peer mentoring, proposal writing workshops, externships, and a centralized career tracking dashboard to support trainee transitions to postdoctoral positions or biomedical careers. Performance objectives include reducing time-to-degree, increasing publication and fellowship submission rates, ensuring responsible conduct of research training, and placing at least 75 percent of graduates in research-intensive roles within 12 months of graduation.