“Based on a vision of building a world-class educational experience that combines many of the best Stanford faculty and international leaders in biotechnology, we created the Master of Science in Translational Research and Applied Medicine (M-TRAM) program to prepare and train the next generation of academic and industry leaders who will take discoveries and translate them for real-world clinical impact,” says M-TRAM Faculty Program Director Dean Felsher, MD, PhD, professor of oncology.
Stanford established the interdisciplinary graduate program to address a critical gap in biomedical training: the need for scientists and clinicians who can translate discoveries from the laboratory into therapies and technologies that benefit patients. Since launching its first cohort of six students in 2022, the M-TRAM program has grown rapidly to 31 students from all over the world in Academic Year 2025–26.
“To date, we have now trained over 60 students, many of whom are already in prominent and independent leadership positions in academia and industry,” notes Joanna Liliental, PhD, M-TRAM Executive Director.
“M-TRAM students engage directly with Stanford faculty, biotechnology companies, clinicians, and industry leaders to tackle real-world translational challenges spanning discovery, clinical development, and commercialization,” she adds.
M-TRAM combines Stanford’s strengths in medicine, technology, and business with biotechnology and pharmaceutical partnerships to give students hands-on training in drug development, clinical trials, biotechnology law, and business. As a result, M-TRAM trains future biomedical leaders to successfully translate scientific discoveries and clinical applications into practical solutions that improve and save lives.
“What makes M-TRAM distinctive is that students are immersed in a translational ecosystem that brings together academia, biotechnology, clinical medicine, and entrepreneurship through direct engagement with faculty, industry leaders, and real-world projects,” Liliental says.
End to End Training
“There is a gap for people who have been rigorously trained in the translation process from beginning to end. Even more senior people in the industry have learned only through experience. This type of training still leaves gaps when training has only come from specific products. Often this experience does not translate well to the next product. An integrated training system is very much needed, and M-TRAM is that integrated system,” says Vern Norviel, JD, a retired patent attorney, who teaches a course in biotechnology law and is one of 37 advisors to the program.
“The M-TRAM program is really vocational training in understanding the whole drug discovery ecosystem,” says M-TRAM Advisor Nathanael Gray, PhD, Krishnan-Shah Family Professor Chemical and Systems Biology, who teaches students about drug development.
Gray says this complexity illustrates why translational medicine requires expertise that extends far beyond laboratory science alone.
“The science of actually developing new antibacterials is pretty mature. There's just nobody working on it right now because it requires an understanding of the entire health care delivery system, analyzing why pharmaceutical companies cannot recoup their R&D costs when developing new antibacterials.
“The students I see coming into this program are interested in the full gamut of these things, and they’re trying to figure out what part of that ecosystem they want to work in. Some of them are real entrepreneur type people who want to set up their own companies. Some of them want to go into health care management. Some are considering going into patent law. And some want to be physician scientists. So it's quite variable,” he says.
The three stories in the sidebar below illustrate how the M-TRAM degree program equips students with highly applicable research and translational skills, competencies, and strategies that prepare them for new responsibilities and leadership roles in both academia and industry. Graduates are prepared to advance their careers in academia, research and development, marketing management, portfolio management, and clinical, quality, and regulatory activities.
Advisors Bring Real-World Experience
Much of the program’s success is attributable to Norviel, Gray, and 35 other global and Stanford advisors, who provide mentorship, strategic guidance, class instruction and domain expertise.
Advisors are typically distinguished leaders in biomedical research, clinical medicine, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development, and/or related fields. Their qualifications generally include substantive professional experience in translational science, extensive leadership experience, and a demonstrated commitment to mentorship and teaching.
Advisors include Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi, PhD; Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Directors Joseph Wu, MD, PhD and Steven Artandi, MD, PhD; physician-scientist Russ Altman, MD, PhD; pediatrician-scientist Mary Leonard, MD; Senior Associate Dean for Research Ruth O’Hara, PhD; and industry leaders across the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.
The advisors support student development, advise on translational research projects, and help connect trainees with professional networks in academia, biotechnology, and clinical development. Advisors also contribute by teaching or delivering lectures in their areas of expertise, as well as providing students with real-world perspectives on translational science and therapeutic development.
Advisors choose to engage with M-TRAM for several reasons. Norviel “saw there was a real gap in my experiences with companies, and I could see this program would fill a desperate need.”
“I became involved because team mentorship of the trainees is critically important,” says Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine Ken Mahaffey, MD, an M-TRAM advisor who teaches students about design and conduct of multicenter clinical trials.
“The trainees have an incredible opportunity with the program and foundation that M-TRAM provides, and engaging with this talented group is, I hope, mutually rewarding,” he says.
“I'm a little bit unusual for a university professor because I spent my early career working for Big Pharma and then I worked for a major cancer hospital. So I thought I had something to contribute about how those different environments work so I could help advise students on which direction they want to go in,” says Gray.
Where M-TRAM Graduates Go Next
The M-TRAM program’s hands-on, faculty-mentored capstone experience helps shape the career trajectories of students and alumni. Some students arrive with ideas and leave building companies. Poppy Promprasert, founder of Korda, was featured in Forbes for developing technology that models how patient health evolves over time to better predict disease risk, reflecting the program’s emphasis on translating complex science into real-world solutions.
Many students deepen their clinical and scientific expertise through translational research and move into leadership roles in industry. Ifan Jenkin, MD, a cardiovascular medicine fellow and Fulbright scholar, explored next-generation approaches to drug discovery at the intersection of stem cell biology and artificial intelligence while completing his capstone at the lab of Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Director Joseph Wu, MD, PhD. Jenkin became assistant director of Business Development and Operations at Gondola Bio.
And others extend their work into academic leadership. Julian Wolf, MD, pursued his capstone in translational ophthalmology, integrating transcriptomics, proteomics, and artificial intelligence to advance biomarker discovery for complex eye diseases. He later joined the faculty at the University Eye Hospital Freiburg in Germany, he continues to translate these approaches into new therapeutic strategies.
What’s Ahead
As for the future of the program, Gray sees it “pulling in more people from our surrounding companies, both in tech and bio. We need to bring those people in to help teach and advise.”
“The M-TRAM program will become a standard of the industry and highly sought after by industry and even government. I think other schools will see the success and emulate the program eventually,” says Norviel.
Mahaffey says that “trainees will be critical to our future ability to translate basic discoveries into human experimentation. Our scientific pursuits are creating incredible insights into disease processes, potential biological targets, and interventions to diagnose, treat, and potentially cure disease. Talented scientists who can help accelerate the translation of discovery are critical to our evidence generation.”
M-TRAM is part of the Department of Medicine’s Center for Translational Research and Applied Medicine (TRAM), which is housed in the Division for Research and Education in Academic Medicine (DREAM).
“We are very excited that this comes out of TRAM, which now has five components: TRAM-Scholars, TRAM-ARTS, the TASC Lab, TRAM-Lab, and of course TRAM-Masters or ‘M-TRAM,’” Felsher says.
M-TRAM attracts students across scientific, clinical, and industry backgrounds who are committed to translating innovations in precision medicine, biotechnology, and experimental therapeutics into real-world impact.
