Welcome Message from the Co-Directors
Welcome to the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine–Moffitt Cancer Center MD/PhD Program.
We are honored to serve as co-directors of a program built for student leaders working at the intersection of medicine, discovery, and innovation. Our mission is to train physician-scientists who ask important questions, care deeply for their patients, and translate biomedical discovery into meaningful improvements in human health.
The USF-MCC MD/PhD Program offers a distinctive combination of academic rigor, individualized mentorship, and institutional momentum. Our students train within a medical school recognized for the second year in a row by U.S. News & World Report as one of only sixteen Tier 1 research-intensive medical schools in the nation. They also benefit from our deep and dedicated partnership with Moffitt Cancer Center, Florida's first and longest-standing NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center and home to more than 150 world-class investigators.
We are a vibrant and growing program that is large enough to offer extraordinary scientific breadth, yet agile enough to know our students well and adapt their training to their individual goals. Through USF Health, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa General Hospital, and an expanding network of institutes, facilities, and collaborators, our students work alongside outstanding mentors across cancer biology, immunology and immunotherapy, neuroscience, cardiovascular science, infectious diseases, genetics and genomics, pharmacology and drug discovery, biomedical engineering, artificial intelligence and machine learning, mathematical and computational oncology, public and global health, and translational medicine.
Our program provides an integrated approach to medical and research training with two years of intensive preclinical studies, four years of in-depth research training, and two years of hands-on clinical rotations. We seek exceptional candidates who bring significant research experience, outstanding academic performance, competitive MCAT scores, and above all the curiosity, resilience, creativity, and commitment to improve health through discovery. In turn, we are committed to their success, providing a cost-of-living stipend, comprehensive health insurance, and a full tuition waiver for the entire duration of the program.
This is an exciting time to join us. Our students train at the intersection of national-caliber institutions offering outstanding mentorship, resources, and clinical expertise provided with the individualized attention only an agile and adaptive program can provide. We invite you to explore our community and imagine the physician-scientist career you could build here at USF and Moffitt Cancer Center.
Sincerely,
J. Zachary Porterfield, MD, PhD
Co-Director, USF Morsani College of Medicine–Moffitt Cancer Center MD/PhD Program
Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease & International Medicine
Assistant Dean, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
Yao Yao, PhD
Co-Director, USF Morsani College of Medicine–Moffitt Cancer Center MD/PhD Program
Professor, Department of Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology
Assistant Dean, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
About Our Program
The USF Morsani College of Medicine - Moffitt Cancer Center MD/PhD Program is designed to foster the development of the next generation of physician-scientists who will make major contributions via translational medicine to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of human disease.
The USF-MCC MD/PhD Program is oriented towards a small group of highly qualified and motivated students and is structured to provide outstanding medical education, scientific training, and state-of-the-art clinical practice by integrating these experiences in an interdisciplinary environment. The program is uniquely tailored to meet the needs of each student, and to promote a deep sense of scientific discovery combined with the application to modern medicine.
Students in the USF-MCC MD/PhD Program have access to the Florida Blue Health Knowledge Exchange, an interactive and almost entirely digital hub of medical information. This innovative technology is located on the USF Health in Downtown Tampa campus.
Read more about how our MD-PhD program aims to train the next generation of physician scientists and learn about the success of one of our current students
