$50M Perot Family Gift Benefits UT Southwestern’s Medical Scientist Training Program
The Perot Family, The Perot Foundation, and The Sarah and Ross Perot, Jr. Foundation gifted a $50 million endowment for UT Southwestern’s Medical Scientist Training Program.
This program is within the United States most elite programs and provides graduates with both a M.D./Ph.D. degree to work in laboratory discoveries within the clinical arena.
The program is celebrating its 40th anniversary of graduating physician-scientists from UT Southwestern Medical School and UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
“This extraordinary gift provides a permanent foundation at UT Southwestern for this distinctive dual-degree program that will not only benefit top UT Southwestern students, but also help address a disturbing national trend in the diminishing number of fully trained physician-scientists,” said Daniel K. Podolsky, president of the UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The Perot Family Scholars program continues a legacy that Ross and Margot Perot have been leading for the past four decades. Starting in 1987 with a $20 million gift supporting Nobel lectures, Michael Brown, M.D., and Joseph Goldstien, M.D., their generosity has continued and also supported the Perot Foundation Neuroscience Translational Research Center, mental health programs, and veterans research, including research by Robert Haley, M.D., on Gulf War Syndrome.
Since UT Southwestern’s M.D./Ph.D program’s launch in 1978, it has graduated nearly 300 physician-scientists with 75% furthering their science work with faculty positions and academic medical centers.
