Congratulations to Our GMS Distinguished Alumni Award Winner, Dr. Vladimir Kefalov (GMS ’99)!
Vladimir Kefalov, PhD (GMS ’99), currently serves as a professor of ophthalmology, and of physiology & biophysics, at the University of California Irvine, holding the Allergan Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology and serving as Vice Chair for Research in Ophthalmology. He is recognized worldwide as one of the top electrophysiologists in vision research and has received awards from Research to Prevent Blindness, the Alcon Research Institute. Most recently, he was selected as the recipient of the prestigious Bressler Prize in Vision Research from the Lighthouse Guild. Dr. Kefalov and his colleagues have produced over 100 publications in journals such as Nature, More
GMS Celebrates Fourth-Annual Gear-Up Week
The Community Catalyst Center's fourth-annual Gear-Up Week brought students together for a week of connection, academic skill-building, creativity and more. Gear-Up Week, hosted this year from Sept. 8 to 12, offered four different activities and events throughout the week. The week began with Community & Belonging Office Hours, hosted by Dr. Karin Schon in the C3 Suite. The next day, students joined C3 in L-403 for the C3 Grad Lab, a night of painting, snacks, and swag pickup. On Thursday, Dr. Aaron Young hosted his annual "Thriving, Not Just Surviving, in Graduate School" seminar, an academic development program that shared tips and tricks for... More
The Fall 2025 Semester Has Begun at Graduate Medical Sciences!
Welcome to Fall 2025 at Graduate Medical Sciences! This semester, we welcomed 486 students to GMS, including 459 master’s students, five MD/PhD students and 22 PhD students. Our incoming students are joining us from 22 different countries and 39 states, attending a collective 220 undergraduate institutions. Most of our new students arrived on campus on Friday, August 29 to participate in a day-long Orientation, where they learned about GMS and Boston University resources, met faculty and staff from the Medical Campus and connected with their peers and administrators in their programs. Around 75 students in the Oral Health Sciences and Physician Assistant... More
Physician Assistant Class of 2028 Celebrates White Coat Ceremony
The new students will join first-year medical students for 18 months of team-based learning The Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Physician Assistant (PA) Class of 2028 celebrated their White Coat Ceremony with family, friends, faculty and staff in Hiebert Lounge on Friday, Aug. 8, officially marking their entry into the study and professional practice of medicine. The program’s 26 new students are the 12th PA class and will join over 200 alumni following the completion of 114.5 credit hours over nearly three years. For the first 18 months of their program, they will attend classes alongside first-year medical students, integrating... More
BU’s Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (CryoEM) Core Facility: Understanding the structures of life at a near-atomic scale
Studying the biological structures of viruses, proteins and other tiny macromolecules is key to understanding how life systems function and what happens when disease or injury cause these systems to break down. These macromolecules are so small that traditional microscopes can’t see them very well. Instead, it takes a special kind of microscope to view these samples at the scale needed to fully understand them. The more powerful the microscope, the better researchers are able to map out the samples’ unique structures and applications. Scientists at Boston University have the tools to do just that. Enter the Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (CryoEM) Core... More
GMS MS in Oral Health Sciences (OHS) Welcomes 50 New Students – Its Largest Cohort in Program History
The Master of Science in Oral Health Sciences (OHS) program welcomed 50 students to its Class of 2026, comprising the program’s largest cohort since it was founded in 2005. This year’s new students attended an Orientation event on Thursday, July 31. The incoming Fall 2025 cohort is represented by students from 14 different states and four international countries. Forty-seven percent of students joining the class graduated with an undergraduate degree in biology or microbiology, with the remaining students graduating in a range of other subjects like public health, health science, nutritional science, neuroscience and biochemistry. The OHS program is one of the... More
Living Longer and Living Healthier: The intersection of regenerative medicine and healthful aging
What’s the key to healthful aging? Ask George Murphy, PhD, associate professor of medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. The Murphy Lab applies stem cell-based models and regenerative medicine to develop and advance techniques in the advancing fields of geroscience and aging biology. Rather than studying disease itself, the Murphy Lab studies resilience. Murphy’s team imagines a world where people can prevent aging-related diseases and spend more years of their lives delaying or completely avoiding disease or disability. “In this way, we are using models of human resiliency in a dish to discover the genes and pathways that are... More
Vickery Trinkaus-Randall, PhD, and Steven Borkan, MD, Receive $1.6M Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) Award to Train MD/PhD Students
Read full article Congratulations to Vickery Trinkaus-Randall, PhD, professor of biochemistry & cell biology, and ophthalmology, and Steven Borkan, MD, associate professor of medicine, who have received a multi-PI Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The $1.6 million award is the first received by BU for the MD/PhD program. It will contribute to the training of at least four MD/PhD students per year to become clinician scientists through research and clinical training opportunities. Trinkaus-Randall and Borkan both serve as co-directors of the MD/PhD program. Learn more about the MSTP Award in the full Chobanian & Avedisian School of... More
Congratulations to Our 2025 GMS Educator and Mentor Awardees!
Each year, the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine honors Graduate Medical Sciences faculty who deliver exceptional education and mentorship to graduate students in masters and doctoral programs. The awards are granted based on recommendations from across GMS programs. This year, GMS is pleased to share that Elizabeth Duffy, MA, and Barbara Schreiber, PhD, have been awarded the 2024 Educator of the Year awards, and that Neil Ganem, PhD, has been awarded the Excellence in Research Mentorship (GMS) award. Read more about the awardees below: Elizabeth Duffy, MA GMS Educator of the Year (Masters Programs) Professor Duffy serves as director of the... More
GMS Spotlight: Kanishka Mehra (MHCBM ’25)
Kanishka Mehra is a May 2025 graduate of the Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling & Behavioral Medicine at Graduate Medical Sciences. In her work as a therapist, Kanishka aims to work with adolescents, young adults, and midlife adults through transitional periods that can hold the potential for transformation. Throughout the last two years, Kanishka has also worked as the Marketing & Communications student intern for GMS, where she created content for social media, designed the biweekly newsletter and managed the online calendar. Learn more about Kanishka’s journey below! Tell me a bit about your journey to Boston. What brought... More