The Indiana University School of Medicine has announced a $60 million grant from the Lilly Endowment in support of the Physician Science Initiative, a new effort to improve human health by turning scientific discoveries in the laboratory into products and treatments that benefit patients while producing new businesses and jobs — a process known as translational research.

The grant from the Indianapolis-based endowment will be used to recruit twenty top physician scientists to the medical school ($37.5 million); endow a medical scientists training program ($10 million); support the Indiana Biobank, which will house biological samples that provide genetic and other information necessary to conduct research ($6 million); grow IUSM's international programs ($2 million); and expand ITRAC, a program developed at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center that works with scientists to map out the steps required to take a scientific discovery from the lab to testing in patients ($2 million).

Physician scientists are medical doctors who have added expertise in a scientific research field — in some cases obtaining a doctoral degree in the process — in order to conduct laboratory research while continuing to treat patients.

"We are focusing on physician-scientists with this initiative because we know the strength of this combination of skills and training and the need for more of these scientists in today's research environment," said IUSM dean D. Craig Brater. "This award will allow us to recruit a cluster of intellectual talent that will both mesh with and enhance our current strengths and will pay dividends for decades to come."