Martin Prince, MD ’85

When the COVID-19 pandemic ends, the world can thank biotech innovators and scientists for their incredible service. These are the people whose creative work includes developing vaccines, inventing new therapies, and studying the root causes of the disparities between populations in health care access and patient outcomes. Thankfully, the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) has been training these pioneers in science for 50 years.

This unique collaboration brings together Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and local research centers to integrate science, medicine, and engineering to solve problems in human health.

“I am so inspired when I hear HST faculty, students, and alumni talking about the exciting new approaches that are being taken to solve the world’s most pressing public health challenges,” says HMS Dean for Medical Education Edward M. Hundert, MD ’84.

He says that many HST students bolster their physician-scientist credentials by spending a fifth year doing laboratory research. “The intensive training students get with world-class research mentors over a full year can truly transform their professional careers.”

Giving students the freedom to choose their own research paths—to follow their ideas without being beholden to someone else’s funding agenda—is very important to HST alumnus Martin Prince, MD ’85. He says that during his HST years, he received fellowship support that guaranteed him that freedom, and since then, he’s wanted to give back to the program.

“Now that we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of HST, the timing is perfect for endowing a fifth-year research fellowship,” remarks Prince, a steadfast HMS supporter whose recent $1 million gift will do just that. With a background in mechanical engineering, he says he was drawn to HST for its quantitative and problem-solving approach. “HST reinforces and emphasizes the application of scientific principles and logical thinking in preference to rote memorization. Over the years, I have found this focus on learning principles to be helpful in dealing with new challenges and for solving the really difficult cases,” says Prince, a professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is known for developing contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography, which offers high-spatial-resolution images of the blood vessels.

Hundert, who has known Prince since they entered HMS together as part of the Class of 1984, says he is inspired by Prince’s successes in biomedical innovation as well as his generous philanthropic support of HMS. “Thanks to funding like this, generations of amazing HST students will have positive ripple effects through their work in science, in the care of patients, and in teaching and mentoring their own students to pay it forward,” Hundert says.