School of Molecular
and Theoretical Biology
In 2017, the School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology thanks to the support of the Zimin Foundation started the Zimin Foundation - SMTB Alumni Summer Research Program, a summer internship program for SMTB alumni that were accepted to SMTB through the Russian-speaking admission process. The purpose of the Program is to encourage SMTB alumni to diversify their research experiences. Crucially, by traveling to top laboratories around the world the participating alumni can get an understanding of how a good laboratory operates, start networking with active researchers, and acquire the support of mentors in their fields improving their chances for further advancement of their career in scientific research.
ZF-SMTB Alumni Summer Research Program provides an opportunity for up to ten SMTB Alumni to join top laboratories in the Life Sciences and related disciplines for a period from six weeks up to three months in the summer. The SMTB grant for undergraduate research will fund internships in laboratories around the world in the broadly defined field of molecular and theoretical biology and related disciplines. Strong preference will be given to applications for summer research internships in countries with a strong research infrastructure.
The grant covers the cost of an economy return ticket to the host laboratory and living expenses for up to three months. Depending on the agreement of the participant with the host lab, the duration of the internship can be from six weeks to three months and should be held in the summer.
Alumni that were accepted to SMTB through the competitive admission process that was carried out in Russian and are currently in the course their undergraduate studies are eligible to apply.
SMTB alumni can apply more than once as long as they are in the course of their undergraduate studies.
The call is in English. Participants should reach an agreement with any laboratory they are interested in joining for an internship of 1-3 months in the summer. Then they apply for the program. The call is announced in the SMTB Alumni Google group. If you are an SMTB alumnus but do not receive notifications from this Google group, please let us know at SMTB email.
The application consists of:
Please ask the PI of the host laboratory to send a confirmation to the Program email (fellowship@molbioschool.org) acknowledging that the laboratory will be willing to host you for the duration of the summer internship and that the host institution will help you with the necessary documentation for obtaining a visa.
The selection committee carefully evaluates all aspects of the applications we receive. It has four members: Liza Leshchiner (Harvard University, Boston) presiding and Vladimir Gelfand (Northwestern University, Chicago), Egor Bazykin (Skoltech University, Moscow) and Fyodor Kondrashov (IST, Austria) participating in the selection procedure.
The School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology does not discriminate, in the selection process or otherwise, on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, sexual orientation, disability or any other potentially discriminatory factors or circumstances.
After the selection process all the participants will receive an email with the results. The candidates selected to receive the scholarship will also receive an official letter indicating the exact amount of the grant. This amount will be determined according to the exact length of the internship and the expected living costs in the city of the host laboratory as calculated by commonly used cost of living indices.
The participants of the program shall send a short scientific report with the results of their work not later than two weeks after the internship. The report should be sent to the Program email.
In 2017 nine alumni were selected to receive the scholarship. They worked in labs of Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (Boston), Harvard Medical School (Boston), Northwestern University (Chicago), the University of Cambridge, Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona), the George Washington University (Washington, D.C.), the University of Calgary, and the Genome Institute of Singapore.
In 2018 ten participants of the program worked in labs of Harvard University (Boston), Harvard Medical School (Boston), the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI, San Diego), the Rockefeller University (New York), Leiden University Medical Centre, the Institute of Science and Technology (Vienna), and Vanderbilt University (Nashville).
In 2019 ten participants of the program spent from six weeks to three months working on projects in different laboratories of Harvard University (Boston, USA), Vanderbilt University (Nashville, USA), Karolinska Institute (Solna, Sweden), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA), New York University (USA), Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia, USA) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (Cambridge, USA).
COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to travel in 2020 so all participants of the program in 2020 had to postpone their internships. In 2021 the situation remained complicated but four alumni who were selected to receive the scholarship in 2020 and five participants of the program in 2021 managed to visit labs of their internship. They spent from four weeks to three months working on projects in different laboratories of Harvard University (Boston, USA), Karolinska Institute (Solna, Sweden), University of Pittsburgh (USA), L'Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), New York University (USA), Imperial College London (UK), IST Austria, Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (Vienna, Austria), and Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Human Genetics (Poznan, Poland). We hope that all participants of the program in 2020 and 2021 will be able to fulfill their internships in 2022.
We accept applications from SMTB Alumni to participate in ZF-SMTB Alumni Summer Research Program up to and including January 15, 2022. You can address all your questions about the Program to the Program email.
