The Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, has announced the launch of a four-year, $1.8 million initiative designed to create and share effective models for teaching interdisciplinary science.

The National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education (NEXUS) initiative will bring together Purdue University; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of Maryland, College Park; and the University of Miami to work on different aspects of a curriculum that connects biology with physics, math, and chemistry. The schools will create interdisciplinary modules that can be dropped into an existing course or integrated into the redesign of an entire curriculum. In addition to their own projects, each school will implement at least part of the curriculum developed by its three partner universities.

The initiative builds on a 2009 report that examined the scientific competencies needed by medical students in the twenty-first century. The report, Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (46 pages, PDF), recommended fundamental changes in undergraduate education and outlined eight competencies that science undergraduate students should master before attending medical school, including a "knowledge of basic physical principles and their application to the understanding of living systems."

"There are many conversations heading in the same direction, addressing how young people should be trained to participate in biomedicine and medical practice in the future," said Cynthia Bauerle, a senior program officer in HHMI's precollege and undergraduate program who will oversee the project. "NEXUS may be nicely positioned to be a hub for that broader national conversation."