For over two decades, Caltech and UCLA have successfully maintained biomedical research endeavors bridging the two institutions, creating a seamless educational conduit. Two longstanding examples are the Caltech/UCLA Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) for MD-PhD students, spanning over 30 years, and the Subspecialty Training and Advanced Research Program (STAR) for fellowship-level physicians to obtain a PhD, which is in its 25th year. These two programs have gained national recognition for training leaders in academia. However, the proposed iTEAM will represent a new paradigm that will be formalized into a 2-year, structured curriculum with an emphasis on recruiting and advancing the under-represented post-doctoral engineers or physical scientists into leadership roles in academia and industry.
