Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine (DSMM) is a career development program for PhD candidates and postdoctoral associates who are studying basic sciences. Scholars gain hands-on experience in clinical areas related to their field of research.
DSMM is directed by physician-scientists with clinical and research expertise in the training focus area. The program historically included four tracks based on strengths at Duke University School of Medicine.
This year the program will start in January 2027 and will support only the Duke Scholars in Oncology and Cellular Therapies track.
Check back for information on the application due date in the fall of 2026. The following DSMM tracks are unable to accept applications for the 2026-2027 academic year: Duke Scholars in Infectious Diseases; Duke Scholars in Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Cardiovascular Disease; and Duke Scholars in Neurosciences
Scholars have the unique opportunity to:
- Gain firsthand exposure to the clinical areas related to their field of basic research
- Learn about the bench-to-bedside translational process
- Understand key aspects of clinical trials
- Identify unmet clinical needs that may be addressed through their scientific expertise
Develop confidence in interacting with and engaging clinician partners
Program time commitment requires approximately 6-8 hours per month, to include:
- Approximately 4 hours of a clinical shadowing experience
2-3 hours of clinical conferences and/or journal clubs
Additional experiences may include:
- Specialty clinical exposure two-to-four times per year, each for approximately 1-1.5 hours. These may include clinical laboratories, clinical diagnostic centers, and diagnostic laboratories.
- Thinking Translationally presentations for two-to-three sessions per year, one each academic term. The sessions will each last approximately 1.5 hours.
The program provides a high-impact experience with a modest time commitment to dramatically enhance each trainee's laboratory experiences without detracting from their primary research mission. Therefore, the program does not provide additional financial support.
A New Generation of Scientists
Through the DSMM experience, we hope to prepare a new generation of scientists to better address critical problems in human health and to develop productive collaborations between basic scientists and clinical partners to achieve greater success in garnering research support.
By the end of the program, we hope DSMM scholars will have a new understanding of and perspective for clinically impactful research.
Contact the Cancer Research Training and Education Office (CRTEC) directed by Gerard Blobe at the Duke Cancer Institute (DCI): DCITraining@dm.duke.edu
This video does not contain any dialogue. Music plays over visuals of a hand drawing out different aspects of the video as well as writing text. A visual description of the video is as follows:
| Written transcript line | Visual description |
|---|---|
| Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine | Listed in upper left of title card |
| Video “from an accredited US medical school” | Opening accreditation or source-quality message appears in video description |
| This video is brought to you by The Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine | Program name appears as a sponsor during introduction |
| From Lab to Clinic | A road sign appears to illustrate movement of research from the lab to patient care in the clinic. |
| Jim is a scientist. | A scientist character named Jim is introduced, in a lab setting with a microscope. |
| Jim had great ideas . . . Really, really great ideas. | A lightbulb appears as a symbol of discovery. |
| Ideas that could make a difference in people’s lives. | An arrow appears, suggesting progress |
| But Jim retired after 30 years working on his great ideas, and his ideas stayed trapped in the lab. | Jim is shown aging out of the lab. |
| They never saw the light of day. | Jim’s ideas are depicted behind prison bars to illustrate that his ideas remained confined to research spaces |
| This is Terry. She is training to be a scientist. | A scientist-in-training named Terry is introduced alongside a lab flask to illustrate working or studying in a lab. |
| Terry, like Jim, has great ideas. | Terry is shown following a similar scientific training path, with a lightbulb, indicating that her own great ideas. |
| Stupendous ideas. | Terry is shown standing tall in full color. Jim appears to her left, outlined in black & white. |
| But Terry doesn’t want to be like Jim. | Terry appears determined to take a different path from Jim’s experience. |
| She wants her ideas to become free from the lab. | Terry’s shown in a triumphant freedom pose, hands extended. |
| She wants her stupendous Ideas to become experiments that might someday become treatments. | Research concepts & ideas advance visually into experiments and then into potential clinical treatments. (Lightbulb, then lab flasks, then pills) |
| Or help tell someone why or what made them sick. | Visuals show an animation of a sneezing face with a tissue. |
| Or become better at what they do best. | Visuals show an athlete running. |
| From Lab to Clinic: But how does a scientist-in-training learn what the “real” problems are in the clinics? | Reappearance of the split visual road sign illustrating progress from lab to clinic. This time the road sign introduces a symbiosis between lab scientist and clinician. |
| What are the unmet needs? | The visual remains to suggest that, to identify problems to address through research, a collaboration must occur. |
| How does she strike up a conversation with a clinician? | The visual remains and the question appears, suggesting that training is necessary to help foster such partnerships. |
| Or event talk about a collaboration? | Only text is shown. |
| Or simply understand a common language? | Only text is shown. |
| Enter: the Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine | Program title reappears as the solution to the problem. |
| We take scientists-in-training and | Hands appear holding signage that states this mission of the Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine program |
| Students working on Ph.D. degrees | The sign remains while images of trainees are added to the screen. |
| and PhDs working on additional training | Another forward arrow appears. |
| And we submerge them for a year into an area of interest like | The forward arrow advances to images of each of the tracks within the Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine program. |
| Infectious Diseases | An image of pills appears. |
| Cardiology | An image of a heart appears. |
| Neurology & Psychiatry | An image of the human brain appears. |
| Endocrinology | Two human figures are depicted with hormone and organ imagery. |
| Oncology | An image of cells appears. |
| We have them | Terry is depicted, now leading other trainees. |
| Go to real clinics to see real problems | Terry and the trainees are shown with a shared vision, a collective thought bubble with a light bulb followed by an image of a clinician delivering patient care. |
| We have them: | A collective thought bubble depicts a physician sharing clinical cases with trainees. |
| Listen to clinical cases to hear how physicians talk and think about patients and problems | Scholars are shown listening to clinicians discuss cases or patient problems. |
| And understand what we know and what we don’t know | The same visual remains and begins to transition. |
| We have them: Learn from scientists who have worked with physicians to take their ideas out of the lab and into the clinics to solve clinical problems. | A hand writes the words beneath an image of a scientist inside a thought bubble. Terry and the trainees move to the top left of the frame. |
| Learn from discussing real clinical studies to understand the barriers and challenges of translating lab discoveries into the clinics. | An image of an open book appears inside a different thought bubble. |
| To us, this isn’t rocket science | A bright red rocket appears |
| It just makes sense | Clear concluding visual reinforces the logic of connecting lab research with clinical care. |
| Sound good? | A Duke blue circle encompasses a large question mark. |
| The Duke Scholars in Molecular Medicine | Program name appears again as a closing title. |
| Come visit us at https://medschool.duke.edu/dsmm | Closing call-to-action appears, as a hand draws the Duke logo and writes out the website URL. |