About St. Jude
St. Jude, located in Memphis, Tennessee, is a private nonprofit biomedical research institute where scientists strive to understand the molecular, genetic, and chemical basis of catastrophic childhood diseases. Research focuses on pediatric cancers, acquired and inherited immunodeficiencies, genetic disorders, and infectious diseases, as well as normal cellular processes. The goal of St. Jude is to develop cures for these diseases and promote their prevention.
The St. Jude campus is situated north of downtown Memphis, on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. The campus consists of hospital and research buildings; ALSAC fundraising headquarters; and a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) facility, which produces clinical-grade therapeutics. The research staff consists of basic science faculty, clinical faculty, postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, and graduate students from around the world.
St. Jude offers opportunities for postdoctoral and graduate training, which is available in a wide variety of research areas in the basic and clinical sciences. The proximity of laboratory and clinical activities provides an ideal setting for collaborative and translational research and facilitates interactions among investigators working in different disciplines.
Current Research
The current basic and clinical research at St. Jude includes work in key areas of biomedical research including cell death and cell cycle regulation, cancer biology, chemical biology and therapeutics, computational biology, developmental biology, epidemiology and cancer control, experimental hematology, gene therapy, genomics, immunology, immunotherapy, infectious diseases, molecular genetics, molecular therapeutics, neurobiology, pathology, pharmaceutical sciences, radiological sciences, stem cell transplantation, structural biology, pediatric AIDS, and psychological effects of catastrophic illnesses. St. Jude also conducts long-term biomedical evaluations of its patients and is the only pediatric research hospital supported by a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center grant. Research highlights from the previous year can be found in the annual Scientific Report, which is available online at stjude.org/sci-rpt.
Leaders in Biomedical Research
St. Jude has world-renowned faculty recognized by election to prestigious organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences Institutes of Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the award of a Nobel Prize.
Six members of the St. Jude faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Charles J. Sherr, MD, PhD (1995); Peter C. Doherty, PhD (1998); Robert G. Webster, PhD (1998); Brenda A. Schulman, PhD (2014); Martine Roussel, PhD (2019); and Douglas Green, PhD (2020).
Six members of the St. Jude faculty have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a prestigious branch of the National Academy of Sciences. The hospital’s IOM members include Peter C. Doherty, PhD, Immunology; President and CEO James R. Downing, MD; William E. Evans, PharmD, Pharmaceutical Sciences; Mary V. Relling, PharmD, Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Charles J. Sherr, MD, PhD, Tumor Cell Biology.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) award is extremely prestigious and offers not only generous funding but also freedom and flexibility in research. Past and present St. Jude HHMI investigators include J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD, Scientific Director; Michael A. Dyer, PhD, Developmental Neurobiology; Brenda A. Schulman, PhD, Structural Biology and Tumor Cell Biology; and Charles J. Sherr, MD, PhD, Tumor Cell Biology.
In 1996, Peter C. Doherty, PhD, who held the Michael F. Tamer Endowed Chair in Immunology, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine. This award recognized Dr. Doherty for key discoveries on how T cells identify and eliminate infected cells.
Academic Programs Office
The vision of St. Jude emphasizes the importance of educating health care and research professionals. In keeping with this vision, the goal of the Academic Programs Office is to be a world leader in attracting the best basic and translational scientists and to provide superior educational and academic opportunities for them to become national and international leaders in advancing the research, the prevention, and the treatment of catastrophic diseases in children. To support this vision, Academic Programs assists in recruiting and onboarding postdoctoral fellows at St. Jude, provides a comprehensive Fellows Professional Development Program, and offers the opportunity for mentoring training. All students, including those enrolled in the Graduate School, are also encouraged to participate in the seminars, symposia, social functions, and professional development programs provided by Academic Programs. Many undergraduate and graduate students choose to study at St. Jude each year. Of these students, several are here to conduct their doctoral research project and thesis preparation under the affiliation agreements that St. Jude has with many universities – both domestic and international.
Outreach
Since 1991, the institution has maintained a robust international presence, establishing 24 institutional partner sites in 17 countries. In 2016, St. Jude established the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine to advance knowledge in global health research and innovation with the overarching goal to advance care and improve outcomes for children with cancer and catastrophic diseases around the world. It launched St. Jude Global in 2018 with the mission to improve the survival rates of children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases worldwide through the sharing of knowledge, technology, and organizational skills. Later that year, the institution formed the St. Jude Global Alliance, a collaboration of more than 125 institutions in 57 countries spread across seven strategic global regions.