Research at the Department of Medicine

Recognized for its pioneering biomedical research, the Department of Medicine (DOM) is the largest recipient of sponsored funding of any department at Harvard Medical School (HMS). The innovation and leadership of our scientists yielded over 275 U.S. patent filings and more than 8,000 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals from January 2015 — December 2019. Departmental and hospital leadership facilitate this success by providing the support necessary to develop premier research programs.

The DOM’s research community consists of more than 500 research faculty and 400 research fellows, who are leaders in basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiological research, particularly in fields involving disease-oriented research, patient-oriented research, and population science. Our investigators are nationally and internationally recognized for their achievements and are represented in some of medicine’s leading honorific societies, including:

• American Society of Clinical Investigation
• Association of American Physicians
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• National Academy of Sciences
• National Academy of Medicine
• Academy of Arts and Sciences

Research Funding and Sponsorship

The DOM’s research program consists of more than 1,400 active projects – basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiological — housed in over 431,000 square feet of net assignable research space throughout the Brigham and Women’s Hospital campus. From 2015 through 2019, the DOM submitted 8,847 grants to various funding agencies; of these, 3,524 were awarded, yielding a 40 percent success rate for the department. Data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools (RePORT) confirms that the DOM leads other academic medical centers in the Boston area in awards from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) — a testament to the breadth and depth of research in the department.