On the cover: A composite photo depicts the aurora borealis over the New Research Building on the Harvard Medical School campus. The lights, which are emitted when charged particles from the sun strike Earth’s magnetic field, could be seen over Boston in May and October 2024.
This page: The curve of the Vanderbilt Hall facade evokes the centripetal force with which HMS draws in passionate experts from around the world to converge on solutions that improve human health.
“Our magnetism both arises from and strengthens our resilience, diversity, and palpable spirit of inquiry.”
From the Dean
There’s a “delicious alchemy” to Harvard Medical School, observed the late Daniel Federman, former dean for medical education. Indeed, a special kind of chemistry occurs when we, the people of HMS, come together in support of something greater than ourselves.
I would add that what happens here has expanded beyond chemistry. We’ve become a powerful magnet for innovation and opportunity.
Our School attracts world-renowned faculty, who maintain a fundamental focus on research and translational impact; outstanding students, who excel across a full spectrum of clinical and academic activities; assiduous postdoctoral trainees, who chart the course for the scientific enterprise; and talented staff, who are instrumental in achieving our highest ambitions.
In the past year, the magnetic quality of HMS has expressed itself in several ways. First, through our ability to bring people together across specialties and sectors to solve society’s most pressing challenges related to health and well-being. Second, through the brilliance of star members of our community, who illuminate the path ahead. And third, through our embrace of transformative technologies — most recently, artificial intelligence, which we are harnessing to accelerate every aspect of our mission.
Our magnetism both arises from and strengthens our resilience, diversity, and palpable spirit of inquiry, compelling us to settle for nothing short of excellence.
Teaching and Learning
The magnetic power of Harvard Medical School’s educational programs pull in
exceptionally skilled teachers and ambitious learners from around the world. Our case-based curriculum model for medical and dental students continues to serve as a gold standard for medical education, and the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program trains the best and brightest to lead tomorrow’s clinical discoveries as physician-scientists.
To maintain our excellence, we must enforce high standards for our medical students, including in their clinical endeavors. Bernard Chang, the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Professor of Neurology and Medical Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and HMS, now in his second year as dean for medical education, is leading efforts to return to more thorough assessments of student knowledge and
Spaces such as the Student Study and Collaboration Center provide opportunities for cooperative problem solving. Pictured (from left): MD students Muhammad Abidi, Mansi Totwani, and Kaiz Esmail, with MD-PhD student Mayowa Oke.
skill acquisition. The intent is that our graduates’ impressive command of medicine will distinguish them in their residency programs and with their future patients.
We are committed to rigorously examining the outcomes of our educational practices so that we can continue to improve how we train the next generation of Harvard doctors. Indeed, contemporary medical education requires placing greater emphasis on skills such as social awareness, professionalism, cultural humility, and leadership so that students who graduate from HMS are not only lifelong learners but also the most capable and compassionate clinicians, scientists, and humanists.
Our graduate education programs continued to lead in scientific ingenuity, intellectual rigor, and community building while increasing their reach and selectivity. For example, the Harvard PhD Program in Neuroscience accepted just 4 percent of applicants.
More than 600 students are now enrolled in our master’s degree programs. The most recent, the master of science in media, medicine, and health, has come to distinguish itself nationally through its focus on evidence-based storytelling. Four master’s programs have been running remotely since 2020, reaching some of our most international cohorts and offering a model for providing robust online degree programs. New master of medical sciences degree programs in clinical research and in therapeutic sciences are set to welcome their first students in fall 2025 — an example of
injecting therapeutics competencies into our educational mission.
We took further steps to prepare students to lead in employing AI to meet the public health goals of the next half century. As of August 2024, all entering medical students in our Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology take a monthlong class on AI in medicine once they complete the first-week Introduction to the Profession class. As far as we know, HMS is the only medical school in the country that starts with an entire course on this subject.
AI has begun to enrich teaching and learning as well. Students in our Pathways MD program will be experimenting with large language models as automated tutors to augment classroom learning. Faculty and staff are using AI tools to analyze medical student performance on consolidation exercises in basic science classrooms and to more efficiently synthesize narrative feedback from students into assessments of how our hospital-based clerkships are performing. AI can help residents identify gaps in students’ training and develop individualized clinical education plans. Faculty who teach PhD students are exploring the value of generative AI to revamp experimental design practice and create personalized learning experiences.
Classes began this fall for the new Artificial Intelligence in Medicine PhD track, led by Zak Kohane, the Marion V. Nelson Professor of Biomedical Informatics and head of the Department of Biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, and Sebastian Schneeweiss, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital. The initial class includes seven PhD students.
The Office for External Education debuted HMX online learning courses in natural language processing (NLP) and AI in medical image interpretation. The NLP course was offered to the entire HMS community for free, and nearly 850 learners took advantage, raising our collective proficiency in this burgeoning area. The office offered a new program on AI in health care for business leaders and developed an accredited continuing education course on AI in medicine for clinicians.
In June, the office celebrated 10 years of providing innovative learning opportunities to help health care professionals, business leaders at all levels, and patients and families worldwide develop their potential to shape the future of medicine and health care. A new addition was the online learning program HealthXcelerate, which provides a comprehensive, patient-centric understanding of the U.S. health care system in a global context. And more than 10 million people visit the Harvard Health Publishing website each month for trusted information.
Excellence attracts excellence in a virtuous cycle. Our acceptance rate for applicants to the MD class of 2028 was 3.2 percent, and 75 percent of accepted students matriculated here — the highest yield of any medical school in the country. Once again, we welcomed a class of individuals who have demonstrated exceptional scholarly achievement and tremendous promise.
As the HMS Diversity Statement affirms, the School’s excel-
Akwi Asombang, a master of science in bioethics student, received the 2024 Global Mentorship Recognition Award from the Medical Women’s International Association Near East and Africa Region.
lence is founded on and driven by our community members’ unique perspectives, talents, experiences, and contributions. Unfortunately, the percentage of the entering class comprised of students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in medicine (URiM) was 17 percent, lower than our average of 20 to 25 percent from 2020–23. The exact reason for the decline is difficult to pinpoint, though it could be attributed in part to a slightly lower number of URiM applicants, combined with the fact that we were blinded to race and ethnicity due to the Supreme Court’s striking down of race-conscious college admissions.
This much is indisputable: We need to do more to recruit the most talented URiM students and ensure that the exceptional doctors who graduate from the School better represent the patients they serve — which has been shown to improve health outcomes.
The top deterrent for students seeking to come here is the cost of education. Our aspiration remains
We remain motivated to raise philanthropy to help us realize the dream of debt-free medical education for our students.
that no student admitted to HMS should have to decide which medical school to attend based on finances. We have a fantastic financial aid program, with $21.4 million given in total for MD students in FY24 — placing us among the top five most generous need-based financial aid programs in the country. Yet as more of our peers offer debt-free or tuition-free education, we must acquire greater support for financial aid. We remain motivated to raise philanthropy to help us realize the dream of debt-free medical education for our students.
With a diversity of backgrounds comes a diversity of opinions. As Harvard University experienced with the latest Israel-Hamas war and the resignation of President Claudine Gay, opinions can become polarizing. Both Harvard and HMS are providing new and evolving opportunities for constructive dialogue.
At the start of academic year 2025, we added content on civil discourse and difficult conversations into the Introduction to the Profession course for first-year medical students and into orientation materials for graduate students. These competencies are critical for future doctors, researchers, and teachers. The Harvard Ombuds Office is delivering additional activities to bring the community together for respectful conversation at regular intervals. Guidance stating that University leaders should no longer make official declarations about the news of the day or matters outside the University’s core function, released by President Alan Garber’s Task Force on Institutional Voice, is meant to sustain an environment suitable for reasoned inquiry, research, and education.
We must be able to speak freely and disagree safely. We must find ways to advance mutual understanding and turn the multiplicity of our convictions into growth. That is how we sustain a community that is most conducive to teaching and learning so all can flourish. n
Discovery and Scholarship
A plate of yeast strains held by a graduate student. Yeast offers a powerful model for studying how transcription factors regulate gene activity and how abnormal transcription leads to diseases such as cancer.
Harvard Medical School is a magnet that brings people together
to recharge urgency around areas of escalating concern in medicine and the life sciences. Here, hope is born from novelty, and reward arises from calculated risk. Our ability to bring collective resources to bear on seemingly intractable problems is unparalleled.
One such problem is the global threat of antibiotic resistance, and this year HMS was awarded more than $100 million in funding from ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, to lead a 25-institution consortium in tackling this slow-moving pandemic.
Headed by Johan Paulsson, professor of systems biology in
the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, the academia- and industry-spanning team is working to develop novel microscopy, microfluidics devices, single-cell assays, and machinelearning tools that allow researchers to rapidly and accurately identify individual bacteria and understand their behavior. The group hopes the work will lead to more effective diagnosis and treatment of lifethreatening bacterial infections.
Being entrusted with leadership of this project speaks to our School’s prodigious resources, collaborative energy, and ability to assemble some of the world’s greatest minds. This convening power extends to many other recent endeavors focused on fundamental research, clinical care, and health care delivery both locally and globally.
One example is the newly established Gene Lay Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, which is sparking interdisciplinary dialogue across Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and HMS to comprehend the protean role of inflammation in diseases that affect millions of people.
The Paul Farmer Collaborative — an alliance between HMS and the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda — is catalyzing the development of sustainable health systems that improve care delivery to underserved populations around the world.
The Office for Research Initiatives and Global Programs added South Korea to the countries where we have signed collaborative agreements with institutions in research and education.
Collaboration closer to home enabled another year of remarkable basic and clinical discoveries at the School.
A team led by Steven McCarroll, the Dorothy and Milton Flier Professor of Biomedical Science and Genetics, and Sabina Berretta, HMS associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital, found a shared biological basis for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and aging
Our neurobiologists — including David Ginty, the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology and head of the Department of Neurobiology; Lauren Orefice, HMS assistant professor of genetics at Mass General;
Allison Hamilos, former research fellow in neurobiology, prepares an optogenetics experiment that manipulates neural activity using light to better understand neurological diseases.
and April Levin, HMS assistant professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital — continued to advance the forefront of our understanding of the mechanisms of touch
Arjun Manrai, assistant professor of biomedical informatics, and colleagues expanded their scrutiny of race-based clinical algorithms to estimate the effects on patients of race-neutral lung function testing
The quality of the School’s science both invites and is strengthened by collaborations with biotechnology, pharmaceutical, robotics, and AI companies. Many of these connections are
The quality of the School’s science both invites and is strengthened by collaborations with biotechnology, pharmaceutical, robotics, and AI companies.
spearheaded by the Therapeutics Initiative at HMS, which breaks down silos between academia and industry to create unique learning opportunities and accelerate the translation of brilliant ideas into new therapies.
The Blavatnik Harvard Life Lab Longwood is now operating at 70 percent capacity, which is a normal steady state for regional incubators. The majority of companies there were founded by Quad faculty members. Skylark Bio — the company developing a gene therapy for hearing loss that originated in the lab of David Corey, the Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science — has been so successful that it is graduating out of the Blavatnik Life Lab and into custom lab space.
Artificial intelligence presents an inflection point in history, and we are expanding its potential to drive discovery. The latest AI-related research across the HMS community spans efforts to illuminate basic biology and the mechanisms of disease, identify new drugs and drug targets, and enhance clinical care and health equity.
The trio of Steven Gygi, professor of cell biology; Wade Harper, the Bert and Natalie Vallee Professor
of Molecular Pathology and head of the Department of Cell Biology; and Edward Huttlin, instructor in cell biology, pressed forward with the BioPlex project, an ambitious effort to profile all human protein-protein interactions. An exciting outcome of this work, made possible by the AI tool AlphaFold, was achieving a structural view of the entire human interactome.
Other faculty members are developing or applying AI tools to cross new thresholds in fundamental science and reveal paths toward better disease risk analysis, outcomes forecasting, treatments, and overall care.
Our community’s accomplishments consistently earn recognition from the world’s most prestigious institutions. Gary Ruvkun, professor of genetics at HMS and Mass General, received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with collaborator Victor Ambros of UMass Chan Medical School for their discovery of microRNAs. The identification of this class of tiny RNA molecules revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that proved essential for multicellular organisms, including humans.
Joel Habener, HMS professor of medicine and director of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology at Mass General, won the 2024 Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for his discovery of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a molecule that has become the basis for therapies that have transformed the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Habener shared the prize with Svetlana Mojsov of Rockefeller University and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen of Novo Nordisk.
Gregory Petsko, HMS professor of neurology at Brigham and Women’s, received the National Medal of Science for advancing our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. Five faculty members were named new Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators. Five others were elected to the National Academy of
Sciences, 10 to the National Academy of Medicine, and six to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Seven were named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Eight researchers in our community received NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research program grants. An impressive nine research and clinical fellows and two assistant professors received awards from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, along with the trainees’ faculty sponsors.
Opportunities to speak at HMS draw in additional scientific luminaries, who in turn energize our community. The Dunham Lectures resumed this spring with keynote speaker Jennifer Doudna. Doudna, who conducted research in an HMS lab as a PhD student before sharing the Nobel Prize for her discoveries related to CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, packed our Joseph B. Martin Conference Center for two days running.
We also continue to invest deeply in our community’s science and scholarship. In academic year 2024–25 we are underwriting 13 projects through the Quadrangle Fund for Advancing and Seeding Translational Research (Q-FASTR). Spanning six Quad departments and two affiliated hospitals,
hms.harvard.edu/news/discovery
these take a variety of approaches in their quests to conquer illness, such as striving to develop an antiviral effective against all coronaviruses, an antisense oligonucleotide to treat leukemia, and a gene editor for certain inherited muscle diseases.
The Blavatnik Therapeutics Challenge Awards, available to Quad and affiliate faculty who aim to accelerate the development of HMS discoveries into clinical therapies, were bestowed on three exceptional proposals. They represent efforts to develop a therapy for fragile X syndrome, modulate epinephrine and norepinephrine receptors in the brain to treat Parkinson’s disease, and prepare an IV oxygen therapy for a first-in-human clinical trial.
HMS also supported 10 projects related to our core facilities and technology development through the Foundry Award Program. These range from upgrades to a nuclear magnetic resonance instrument and microbe-imaging microscopes to new capabilities in metabolomic and lipidomic profiling, super-resolution light microscopy, next-generation genome sequencing, and single-cell studies.
The Center for Computational Biomedicine, launched in 2020 to create a shared resource for data and computational expertise across the Quad, began transitioning into a research core after reevaluation of its scope and service areas. The focus of the new Core for Computational Biomedicine remains squarely on the Quad, assisting investigators in implementing innovative research solutions and supporting AI-enabled projects. This important work will be conducted in close partnership with HMS IT, which has made strategic investments in research computing and mobilized support as the School emerges as a leader in AI and machine learning. n
Gary Ruvkun, professor of genetics at HMS and Massachusetts General Hospital, became the 17th Nobel laureate from the School in October.
Service and Leadership
Harvard Medical School faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital perform the world’s first transplant of a genetically modified pig kidney into a living human.
Our mission at Harvard Medical School is to alleviate suffering and improve health
and well-being, not just for a select few but for all. The medical profession is founded on the premise that every person deserves to be treated with dignity, and HMS takes up the mantle of health equity with pride and resolve. We recognize that biomedical education, clinical service, and scientific discovery require not only high standards and critical thinking but also a commitment to fairness, which helps explain why others look to us to lead and collaborate.
As one demonstration of this conviction, the Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership (DICP), Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, and New England Journal of Medicine arranged three symposia to discuss research published by the journal — including several articles authored by HMS fac-
ulty — examining the historical roots of injustice in medicine. Gatherings like these help us grapple with our past, engage in the moral practice of learning together, and change medicine for the better.
The potency of our School’s partnerships extends to strengthening the health of communities. A standout example is a joint grant that the Institute for Health Equity Research, Evaluation, and Policy at the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers received this July from the Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery Initiative through its inaugural Reparative Partnership Grant Program. DICP is the designated Harvard University partner for the grant and will collaborate with the institute, the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, and Boston’s Codman Square Health Center to invest in community-led scholarship that addresses health inequities among people descended from those harmed by slavery.
Outside institutions recognized exemplars of leadership in health equity at HMS. Joan Reede, dean for diversity and community partnership, was awarded the 2024 W. Montague Cobb Lifetime Achievement Award by the W. Montague Cobb/National Medical Association Health Institute for her significant impact on the health of underserved populations and her commitment to advancing health equity and increasing diversity in the biomedical sciences throughout her career.
The legacy of global health pioneer Paul Farmer continued to have profound impacts. Forty years of collaboration among the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Partners In Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Haiti’s Ministry of Public Health and Population laid the groundwork for resilience and hope when Haiti experienced its worst political unrest and violence in decades this past spring. The local staff of a dozen hospitals with deep ties to HMS provided crucial health care
to some of the island nation’s most vulnerable people. This long-term leadership and investment in local capacity building offered a master class in providing health care in times of crisis.
Serving populations in need is also accomplished through scholarship in health care policy. This work is increasingly important as the U.S. health care system faces threats such as rising costs, a stringently regulated reimbursement environment, and economic concerns about private equity takeovers of hospitals. To carry forward our research in this area, Nicole Maestas, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Care Policy in the Field of Economics, assumed the role of head of the Department of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS on Nov. 1, 2024. In Maestas, the department will have a discerning advocate for understanding how to leverage the complex interaction of social, economic, and medical factors to improve health policy and enhance people’s ability to participate in society in meaningful ways.
Sincere gratitude goes to Barbara McNeil, the Ridley Watts Professor of Health Care Policy, who founded the department in 1988 — the first of its kind at a medical school — and served as its head for a remarkable 36 years. Through her exceptional service, including twice serving as interim dean of HMS, McNeil built a solid foundation and created an enduring legacy.
This year saw additional paragons of service and leadership in basic and clinical research. In a first-of-its-kind medical procedure, HMS physicianscientists at Massachusetts General Hospital transplanted a genetically edited pig kidney into a human. The surgery marked a major milestone in the quest to alleviate critical shortages of human kidneys for patients with end-stage renal failure and to reduce health disparities associated with organ failure and transplantation.
The kidney was provided by eGenesis, a xenotransplantation therapy company co-founded by George Church, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at HMS, and Luhan Yang, former HMS research fellow in genetics.
Our community was deeply saddened by the death of the transplant recipient, Rick Slayman, two months later. There was no indication his death resulted from the transplant. He will be remembered as a beacon of hope and courage for transplant patients and their loved ones, surgeons, and researchers worldwide.
The HMS-led Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR) continued to help guide the nation in pandemic preparedness. Its latest ambitious endeavor aims to create infrastructure for its collaborating institutions to collect and share biospecimens and electronic health record data — with the fullest patient privacy protections in place — to advance infectious disease research. MassCPR also announced funding for eight trainee-led research projects in academic year 2025 as part of its focus on infectious agents that are a global threat and to develop future biomedical science leaders.
Harvard Catalyst launched several new initiatives that support the next generation of clinical and translational researchers and the communities they serve. To address one roadblock commonly faced by junior investigators, the center awarded approximately 50 investigators subsidized time to use Harvard’s core research resources, which are often obscure or difficult to access. To support diversity and community inclusion in research, the annual summer program for visiting medical students brought nine budding physician-scientists from across the U.S. and Puerto Rico to work on mentored research projects with HMS faculty. The Clinical and Translational Research Academy First Grant Bootcamp, a 15-week program for
Six colleagues, including Hera Vlamakis, director of research administration in the Department of Microbiology, are leading a Dean’s Innovation Award project exploring generative AI to improve onboarding of academic personnel and spark community connection.
early-stage investigators, helped its first cohort to develop the writing skills necessary to secure a competitive first grant.
Cautious and creative use of artificial intelligence offers another avenue for HMS to recruit and retain top talent and augment the best science, patient care, and education and training. The inaugural Dean’s Innovation Awards for the Use of Artificial Intelligence granted a total of $2.2 million to 33 projects exploring how generative AI can open scientific frontiers, transform medical and graduate education, and improve administrative efficiency.
Leadership includes shaping global conversations on emerging topics in medicine and biomedical research. To that end, the Office of Communications and External Relations welcomed eight local, national, and international science and medical journalists to a media boot camp focused on the promise of AI in biomedical discovery. Interactive sessions with 11 faculty members and postdocs from the HMS and Harvard community equipped the reporters to cover this area of research in more informed and inspiring ways.
While the effects of our collaborative work reverberate globally, leadership begins at home. We celebrated dozens of community members this
year for their outstanding mentorship, teaching, advocacy, and service. HMS worked with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to establish a core for mentoring excellence, which provides monthly programs for any Harvard faculty member involved in mentoring.
HMS celebrated the promotion of 663 faculty in academic year 2024. This includes 80 promoted to full professor (45 percent women, the same percentage as the entire faculty, and 9 percent from groups underrepresented in medicine, higher than the faculty percentage of 8 percent), 180 to associate professor (40 percent women, 8 percent URiM), and 403 to assistant professor (50 percent women, 11 percent URiM).
The Office for Faculty Affairs continued to optimize and demystify the academic promotion process. A new online tool, CV Generator, aims to reduce administrative burdens and delays for appointments and promotions and help faculty strengthen their dossiers. The launch of a professorial-only title — professor of clinical X, where X represents the academic department — recognizes faculty who have made a national impact on the practice of medicine through contributions that transcend peer-reviewed scholarship.
The way we attend to one another determines the extent of our success and the effect we have on the world. The dean’s office organized several breakfasts this spring to generate ideas on fostering a deeper sense of community at our School. The anticipated completion of the skylighted atrium in Building C (to be renamed the Bertarelli Building), which will integrate new gathering spaces into our historic campus fabric, and the Gordon Hall of Medicine renovation, which will create centralized co-working space for administrative departments, will provide fresh ground for connection. n
The Blavatnik Harvard Life Lab Longwood, which offers laboratory and co-working space for high-potential start-ups, is now operating at 70 percent capacity, with the majority of companies founded by Quad faculty.
12,361 Total faculty | 191 Tenured and tenure-track faculty on HMS campus in 11 preclinical departments | 6,859 Voting faculty on campus and at affiliates | 10,604 Full-time faculty on campus and at affiliates
Awards and Honors
Nobel Prizes (cumulative) physiology or medicine, peace: 11 prizes, 17 recipients | 93 National Academy of Sciences members (current) | 176 National Academy of Medicine members (current) | 42 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (current): 39 Investigators, 2 Scholars, 1 Professor
Alumni
11,594 Living medical school alumni (9,921 MD, 1,673 master’s)
AS OF OCTOBER 11, 2024
Affiliates
Baker Center for Children and Families
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Boston Children’s Hospital
Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Cambridge Health Alliance
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute
Hebrew SeniorLife
Joslin Diabetes Center
Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Massachusetts General Hospital
McLean Hospital
Mount Auburn Hospital
Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
VA Boston Healthcare System
Fundraising Update
Harvard Medical School relies on dedicated donors to achieve its ambitious goal of enhancing the health and well-being of all people. We are fortunate to have numerous philanthropic supporters who stand with us. Their contributions strengthen our efforts to advance science, medicine, and education for the betterment of humanity.
This fiscal year, 3,546 alumni, friends, faculty, staff, foundations, and corporations donated nearly $118 million to the School. Their remarkable generosity drives the innovative work of our faculty, staff, postdoctoral trainees, and students.
Of note, Lisa Yang continued her generous support of the Hock E. Tan and K. Lisa Yang Center for Autism Research at Harvard University, which is advancing areas of neurobiology that will have a lasting impact on our understanding of autism spectrum disorder. Rodman W. Moorhead III, AB ’66, MBA ’68, and his wife, Alice, established a neurobiology seed grant fund to inspire groundbreaking projects aimed at treating brain diseases and disorders.
The Dunleavy Foundation created a fund that enhances the School’s efforts to train future scientists to harness the capabilities of artificial intelligence toward improving health care and advancing biomedical science.
Fujifilm expanded its fellowship funding for PhD students in the HMS Therapeutics Graduate Program, bolstering excellence in therapeutic science careers across academic and biopharmaceutical fields. Twin gifts from the Lynch Foundation and Mary Lynch Witkowski, AB ’96, MBA ’01, MD ’16, are fueling postdoctoral research in health equity.
To nurture future physician-scientist leaders, Robert Bast and his wife, Blanche, established an endowed scholarship for students in the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program. A bequest from physician Estherina Shems-Schotland created an endowed scholarship fund to assist an MD student member of the Joint Committee on the Status of Women.
Thanks to the steadfast backing of our benefactors, HMS will continue to lead in safeguarding human health.
Financial Report
Harvard Medical School achieved breakeven on unrestricted resources for the third consecutive year despite continued financial challenges. We did so by deploying flexible cash reserves, which increased from FY23 to FY24 because additions outpaced use.
According to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), our FY24 revenue was $898 million — a $69 million or 8 percent increase over FY23. The largest drivers of growth were increases in the endowment distribution, use of one-time restricted funding sources, and recognition of
previously deferred revenue. Increases in restricted current use gift receipts and rental income also contributed.
Largely offsetting this growth, FY24 expenses rose by $68 million, or 8 percent, to $925 million. Salary and wage growth of 9 percent was the largest factor, as we continued to invest in our people. This category included cost-of-living increases as well as new staff positions needed to support key mission areas and revenue-generating programs. Other significant expense drivers were IT infrastructure investments in research computing and generative AI.
In all, HMS ended FY24 with a $27 million operating loss, a $1 million improvement over FY23. The School continues to devote tremendous resources to its research, education, and service missions. Capital construction projects underway will yield long-term administrative cost savings, enhance the campus, and bring the community together. These include turning Gordon Hall into a flex-space hub and, thanks to a generous gift from the
Bertarelli family, transforming the Building C courtyard into a skylighted West Commons Atrium for convening and collaboration.
While we face economic headwinds, we have weathered our fair share of fiscal challenges, and I have confidence we will do so again. HMS will maintain solid financial footing while investing in the future to ensure its ongoing success.
—Dean George Q. Daley
FY24 OPERATING REVENUE
FY24 OPERATING EXPENSES
25 Shattuck Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.hms.harvard.edu
Produced by the HMS Office of Communications and External Relations
Credits: Writing and editing by Allison Eck and Stephanie Dutchen; design and art direction by Paul DiMattia; photography art direction and research by Maya Rucinski-Szwec; copy editing by Bobbie Collins and April Poole. Photography and images by Stephanie Dutchen, Gretchen Ertl, Steve Lipofsky, Massachusetts General Hospital, Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer, and Mattias Paludi. Printed by Hannaford and Dumas.
