Washington University School of Medicine is committed to advancing human health throughout the world. As noted leaders in education, research and patient care, the School of Medicine’s outstanding faculty has contributed many discoveries and innovations to science and medicine since the school’s founding in 1891.  The school pioneered bedside teaching and led in the transformation of empirical knowledge into scientific medicine. From the earliest days, there has been an understanding that "investigation and practice are one in spirit, method and object".

Eighteen Nobel laureates have been associated with the School of Medicine. Our faculty currently includes 13 National Academy of Sciences fellows, 27 members of the National Academy of Medicine and six investigators with NIH MERIT status. Our investigators have earned 101 individual and/or institutional NIH career development awards and 58 career development awards from non-federal agencies.  The medical school is one of the top recipients of NIH funding and leads globally in a wide range of frontier research arenas across all of its basic science and clinical departments. More than $762.3 million in grants and contracts supported faculty research in the 2021 fiscal year.