Wayne M. Yokoyama, M.D., was named director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) effective July 1.
Yokoyama, a professor of medicine and of pathology and immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, becomes the sixth director of the MSTP. He succeeds Daniel Goldberg, M.D., Ph.D., who is stepping down after 10 years as director.
Yokoyama directs a basic research laboratory and is an attending physician on the internal medicine and rheumatology consultation services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He has been active in the training of physician-scientists at Washington University and at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He serves on the thesis committees of other MSTP students and was a member of the University’s MSTP committee from 1996 to 2002.
Yokoyama joined Washington University in 1995 as chief of the Rheumatology Division in the Department of Medicine and as the Sam J. Levin and Audrey Loew Levin Chair for Research on Arthritis. In 1997, he was selected in his second national competition to join the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a non-profit medical research organization. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Yokoyama praised Goldberg for his accomplishments as director.
“The MSTP community conveys a special thanks to Dr. Goldberg for his outstanding contributions,” Yokoyama said. “Under his leadership, the MSTP at Washington University has continued to grow and thrive with 26 students scheduled to matriculate in this fall’s first-year class. During Dr. Goldberg’s tenure as director, many former MSTPs have completed their training and now have their own independent laboratories at medical schools and institutions throughout the country.”
The MSTP at Washington University is the largest M.D.-Ph.D. program in the nation with 185 students. The program, established in 1969, holds the largest National Institutes of Health predoctoral training grant, which supports 49 students annually. Since it was established, 427 individuals have graduated from the program, and more than 80 percent of graduates are engaged in careers in academic medicine, biotechnology or government research.