Congratulations!
I am proud to nominate you for academic recognition as a Delegate representing your school and state at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders to be held June 26 to 28, 2024, in Lowell, MA.
The Congress of Future Medical Leaders is a highly selective program honoring academically superior high school students dedicated to the service of humanity through medicine.
You have been selected for recognition because of your outstanding academic record, your leadership potential, and your desire to contribute to the profession of medicine as a physician or medical scientist (as a biologist, engineer, software or hardware technologist, or mathematician).
Please discuss this nomination and the material on this page with your family and notify the Academy of your acceptance no later than May 14, 2024. You may do so by going online to www.FutureDocs.com/Accept.
The Congress of Future Medical Leaders is an academic honors program with strict requirements, and you must have a minimum 3.5 GPA (or equivalent), either current or cumulative, to attend.
After the close of the Congress, you will be presented with the inscribed Congress of Future Medical Leaders Award of Excellence, often highlighted by Delegates to distinguish themselves in college, scholarship, and internship applications.
Participating in the Congress from around the world will be:
- Winners of the Nobel Prize, the most prestigious award in the world;
- Award-winning young inventors and scientists;
- Prominent medical school deans;
- Leaders in medicine; and
- Medical futurists
for three once-in-a-lifetime days of awe-inspiring motivation, excitement, friendship, and education.
You will view surgery and have an opportunity to submit questions for the surgeon to answer in real-time during the procedure.
You will be guided by some of the greatest living minds in medicine — men and women who are literally leading humanity into the medical miracles of the 21st century.
Distinguished physicians and medical scientists who mentored Delegates in the past have included:
- Sir Richard Roberts, Ph.D., Winner, 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine;
- Wiley “Chip” Souba, M.D., Dean of Dartmouth University’s Geisel School of Medicine (2010-2014);
- Sidney Altman, Ph.D., Winner, 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry;
- Michael Sasevich, M.D., Chairman Cardiothoracic Surgery at Doctors Medical Center, Modesto, CA; and
- Stephen Ray Mitchell, M.D., MBA, Dean for Medical Education at Georgetown University (2000-2020).
Also advising Delegates were several young geniuses leading the future of medicine, including:
- Gitanjali Rao, 2020 TIME Top Young Innovator, 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30, 2018 EPA Presidential Award, 2017 Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge Winner;
- Sajeev Kohli, 2018 Grand Prize in Global Healthcare at the International BioGENEius Challenge;
- Erin Smith, 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30, Thiel Fellow, and 2018 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair Winner;
- Krithik Ramesh, 2019 Gordon E. Moore Award Winner, International Science and Engineering Fair and Named an “Innovator to Watch” by Smithsonian Magazine; and
- Olivia Hallisey, Google Science Fair Grand Prize Winner.
You will make friendships with those who share your dreams and passion — other young people like you who want to truly make a difference and devote their futures to saving lives.
You will discuss and observe state-of-the-art diagnostic tools and be inspired by world-changing researchers, futurists, and technologists.
We will help you prepare a news release for your local T.V. stations and newspapers, and we will happily provide copies of your award certificate and letters confirming your nomination and attendance for you to share with the colleges and universities of your choice.
Your participation in the Congress will enrich your academic profile when you are applying to competitive colleges and universities. It may also be an important part of your showcase of extracurricular experience and achievements as you write application essays and prepare for college interviews.
Again, please discuss this nomination and the material on this page with your family and notify the Academy of your acceptance no later than May 14, 2024. To accept your nomination and complete your enrollment, go online to www.FutureDocs.com/Accept.
Please accept my personal congratulations. You should be very proud of your achievements and dedication. I look forward to greeting you at the Congress in June.
In the service of medicine and science,
Mario Capecchi, Ph.D.
Science Director, National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists
2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
P.S. The Congress of Future Medical Leaders will be held from June 26 to 28, 2024, just outside of Boston on the campus of the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
Your participation will enhance your academic profile and distinguish you as one of our most promising future leaders of medicine. You will leave better prepared to achieve your dreams and to let nothing stand in your way.
Remember, we must receive notification of your acceptance no later than May 14, 2024. Go to www.FutureDocs.com/Accept to accept your nomination and complete your enrollment.
Distinguished Physicians, Grand Masters of Innovation, and Young Geniuses of today mentoring Congress Delegate have and will include...
The Grand Masters
George M. Church, Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School Professor of Genetics
Dr. Church is a founding member of the Wyss Institute and director of PersonalGenomes.org, the world’s only open-access information on human genomic, environmental, and trait data. His team invented CRISPR for human stem cell genome editing and other synthetic biology technologies and applications, including new ways to create organs for transplantation, gene therapies for aging reversal, and gene drives to eliminate Lyme disease and malaria. He has co-authored 450 papers, 105 patents, and one book, Regenesis.
M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D.
Surgeon General of the United States, 1993-1994
Dr. Elders was the first person in the state of Arkansas to become board certified in pediatric endocrinology, the fifteenth Surgeon General of the United States and the first African American, and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public Health Service. Long an outspoken advocate of public health, Dr. Elders was appointed Surgeon General by President Clinton in 1993. In 1996, she wrote her autobiography, Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America. Now retired from practice, she is a professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and remains active in public health education.
Wiley “Chip” Souba, M.D.
Surgical Oncologist
Dean, Dartmouth University Geisel School of Medicine, 2010-2014
Dr. Souba is a Harvard University-trained surgical oncologist, nationally recognized researcher, leadership expert, and former dean of the Dartmouth University Geisel School of Medicine. He is regularly ranked as one of The Best Doctors in America by his peers and has been recognized for his clinical expertise by Boston Magazine. He was funded by the National Institutes of Health for 20 years to study amino acid metabolism in catabolic diseases. He has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, and book chapters, and has served as Editorial Chair of the American College of Surgeons and Co-editor of the Journal of Surgical Research. Today, he’s focused on training physicians to be more effective leaders in their practices.
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Ph.D.
TIME Magazine’s 100 Most influential People, 2007
L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science, 2008
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2009
Dr. Blackburn won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2009 for discovering the molecular nature of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that serve as protective caps essential for preserving genetic information, and for co-discovering telomerase, an enzyme that maintains telomere ends.
She is the Morris Herztein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Blackburn and her research team at UCSF work with various cells including human cells, with the goal of continued understanding of telomerase and telomere biology.
Stephen Ray Mitchell, M.D., MBA
Dean for Medical Education, Georgetown University, 2000-2020
Dr. Mitchell is dean of one of America’s most prestigious medical schools, Georgetown University, where he is responsible for the medical school administration, curriculum, and student affairs. He opened and continues to be the Director of the Georgetown University Hospital Childhood Arthritis Center. He has been honored numerous times for his teaching excellence, including multiple “Golden Apples” for medical student education and the Kaiser Permanente Award from the faculty for Outstanding Clinical Teacher in the Medical Center.
Gregg Semenza, M.D., Ph.D.
2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Dr. Semenza is a professor of pediatrics, radiation oncology and molecular radiation sciences, biological chemistry, medicine, and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Semenza is the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Pediatrics and serves as the director of the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering. Dr. Semenza has led the field in uncovering how cells adapt to changing oxygen levels. He is best known for his groundbreaking discovery of the HIF-1 protein, which controls genes in response to changes in oxygen availability. The finding has far-reaching implications in understanding and treating low-oxygen health conditions such as coronary artery disease and tumor growth. Dr. Semenza was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for this groundbreaking research.
Francoise A. Marvel, M.D.
Cardiology Fellow, Johns Hopkins University
Co-Founder, Corrie Health
As a cardiology fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Francoise Marvel, M.D., collaborated with Apple on an app, Corrie Health, designed to empower heart attack patients in their recovery. Corrie Health works with the Apple Watch and is the first cardiology app in CareKit, Apple’s new framework for medical applications. Corrie Health helps patients manage medications, schedule follow-up appointments, and contact healthcare providers. It also shows heart rate and steps walked each day, which are tracked by an Apple Watch, while blood pressure is monitored through another Bluetooth-enabled sensor. The American Heart Association presented Dr. Marvel and her team with a $25,000 Urban Health Accelerator grant. Dr. Marvel aims to expand our understanding of the roles of health technology, machine learning, and big data through ongoing testing and scaling of the Corrie Health platform for cardiovascular disease prevention.
George M. Whitesides, Ph.D.
Recipient, 1998 National Medal of Science
Harvard University Professor of Chemistry
A giant in the field of chemistry and a prolific author of more than 950 scientific articles, Dr. Whitesides is best known for his work in the areas of NMR spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology. He has received dozens of awards, including the Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences for his creation of new materials and the Priestley Medal, which is the highest honor bestowed by the American Chemical Society.
Virginia Man-Yee Lee, Ph.D.
Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, 2020
The Times ‘Science Power List’, 2020
Dr Lee was awarded the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her research on Alzheimer's disease. She is the John H. Ware 3rd Professor in Alzheimer's Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and Co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program.
Dr. Lee’s research focuses on disease proteins that form pathological inclusions in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and related neurodegenerative disorders of aging. Her work demonstrated that tau, alpha-synuclein, and TDP-43 proteins form unique brain aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases and provided critical evidence that aggregation of brain proteins is a common mechanistic theme in diverse neurodegenerative diseases. Most importantly, this research has opened up new avenues of research to identify targets for drug discovery to develop better treatments for these disorders. Dr. Lee is listed among the 10 most highly cited neuroscientists by Alzheimer’s Disease researchers.
Myrtle Potter
FORTUNE’s Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Business
Black Health Magazine’s 25 Most Influential African Americans in Healthcare
Glamour Magazine’s Everyday Icon
Wall Street Journal’s 50 Women to Watch
Myrtle Potter is the CEO of Sumitovant Biopharma, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company focused on rapidly developing innovative medicines. Before she joined Sumitovant, Myrtle served as Vant Operating Chair at Roivant (2018-2019). Prior to Roviant, she was CEO of Myrtle Potter & Company, a healthcare advisory firm she started in 2005. From 2000 to 2005, Potter was COO and later President of Genentech, where she achieved record sales and earnings growth and launched seven novel therapies. During her tenure, she co-chaired the Product Portfolio Committee, which made all asset investment and prioritization decisions for Genentech’s drug pipeline, making it the most valuable pipeline in the world at that time. Prior to Genentech, she was President of Bristol-Myers Squibb’s U.S. cardiovascular and metabolic business, where she oversaw an operation of 3,500 people and which launched numerous multi-billion-dollar medicines. Potter began her biopharmaceutical career at Merck, where she started the company Astra-Merck, Inc., which, through a series of transactions, became AstraZeneca.
The Young Geniuses
Gitanjali Rao
Winner, 2017 Discovery 3M Young Scientist Challenge
When 7th-grader Gitanjali heard about the Flint water crisis, she was inspired to help and dove right into research. She designed a compact device to detect lead in drinking water using a mobile app. In 2017, she was named “America’s top young scientist” and was awarded the $250,000 top prize from Discovery at the 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Earlier this year, she was named in the Forbes 2019 “30 Under 30” list of breakthrough scientists.
Krithik Ramesh
Winner, 2019 Gordon E. Moore Award, International Science and Engineering Fair
Named an “Innovator to Watch” by Smithsonian Magazine
At 17 years old, Krithik Ramesh developed a real-time navigation system for spinal reconstruction surgery to guide surgeons using augmented reality and machine learning. Currently, he is working on developing a fetal cardiac diagnostics platform to better diagnose congenital heart disease in utero. He also enjoys applying his love for engineering in philanthropic ways: He started a nonprofit organization called the Empowering Rural India Foundation that provides sustainable energy solutions to impoverished schools.
Sajeev Kohli
Grand Prize, Global Healthcare at the 2018 International BioGENEius Challenge
Sajeev Kohli is a student at Harvard University from Waterloo, Ontario. He has been involved with university laboratory research since he was 13 years old and has won regional, national, and international awards for his work focusing on the implementation of a new nanoparticle-based drug carrier development pipeline for cancer treatment. He was invited to Parliament Hill in Ottawa by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to showcase his research in person to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and the Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan.
Erin Smith
2019 Forbes 30 Under 30
Winner, 2018 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
Erin Smith learned early on to channel her endless curiosity into research. Her past projects have ranged from developing a clean oil-sand extraction method to investigating neuronal remodeling at the Weizmann Institute to determining visual attention strategies via eye-tracking at Harvard Medical School. Most recently, she developed FacePrint, a tool to detect and monitor Parkinson’s disease using video technology and early-stage facial expression indicators. Ms. Smith is currently a student at Stanford University and was a Thiel Fellow before starting college. Her goal in life is to build the future of neurological and mental healthcare.
Utkarsh Tandon
2017 Young Innovators to Watch Award, Consumer Electronics Show
Winner, 2016 International BioGENEius Challenge
Utkarsh Tandon is an aspiring computational biologist and machine learning researcher at Stanford University. After volunteering at a local Parkinson’s institute during the summer following 9th grade, Mr. Tandon founded OneRing, a medical device company that has created an intelligent monitoring ring to better track Parkinson’s motor symptoms. Throughout high school, he spent countless hours learning and applying state-of-the-art algorithms to model some of the most complex diseases. His work on identifying blood pressure signatures in retinal images of early-onset diabetic retinopathy patients won him the 2016 International BioGENEius Challenge.
Olivia Hallisey
Grand Prize Winner, 2015 Google Science Fair
Olivia Hallisey recognized the critical need for early diagnosis for Ebola, in order to slow and stop the spread of the virus. Olivia was able to develop the “Ebola Assay Card,” an inexpensive, rapid diagnostic test that indicates results through a color change, eliminating language barriers and increasing ease of use. She also developed a similar test for early diagnosis of Lyme disease, and she is continuing research on this assay as a broad disease diagnostic with applicability for other ELISA assay-based diseases.
Information for Nominees and Their Parents
Students are nominated to become Delegates by their teachers, counselors, and principals based on their dedication to entering the medical field as physicians or medical scientists (biomedical, technological, engineering, and mathematical); their leadership potential; and their academic excellence.
Qualified students may also be identified through other means such as academic events, recommendations, youth organizations, honor societies, medical institutions, medical societies, program Alumni, and in-classroom surveys.
College Credit
Delegates are eligible to earn three college credits, after demonstrating their attendance at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders, at an additional cost and upon completion of additional coursework. Complete information will be provided upon enrollment.
College credit will demonstrate to universities and other institutions that you have already completed college-level academic work.
Proof of Academic Qualification
The Congress is an academic honors program. Students must meet one of these requirements: a 3.5+ GPA, an ACT score of 22+, OR an SAT score of 1300+, to attend. Unless the student was selected by a teacher, the student must provide the Academy with documentation of their GPA or test scores.
If the student attends without having provided GPA or test score documentation, the student will still be allowed to participate in the Congress, but they will not receive the Congress of Future Medical Leaders Award of Excellence until documentation is provided.
Financial Assistance
A limited number of scholarships based on financial need are available. Interested families should email the Office of Admissions at Scholarship@FutureDocs.com for further information and an application.
News Release
Students will be able to create their own news release using an easy-to-follow program the Academy has developed. Included are instructions on how to distribute this release to local newspapers and television stations so students can gain maximum recognition of their accomplishments.
Letters of Participation
The Academy will, upon request, supply letters certifying the student’s participation and matriculation in the Congress of Future Medical Leaders. These letters can be sent to colleges and universities as well as organizations offering grants and scholarships.
Students with Special Needs
The Academy encourages the participation of students with special needs, including students with disabilities. Students, parents, guardians, legal representatives, and educators are encouraged to contact the Academy directly for more information and to discuss any specific needs.
Congress of Future Medical Leaders Dates and Tuition
The Congress of Future Medical Leaders will be held June 26 to 28, 2024, just outside Boston, MA, on the Campus of UMass Lowell. Tuition includes instruction, speakers, education personnel, the Congress of Future Medical Leaders Award of Excellence, and all activities at the Congress.
Will Attending the Congress Help a Student Gain Admission to Competitive College and Medical School?
The education, motivation, and recognition at the Congress can inspire students to take the personal actions necessary to become much stronger candidates for competitive college and medical school admissions.
Attendance at the Congress can also enhance a student’s academic profile by adding to their showcase of extracurricular experience and achievement needed when applying to colleges and universities.
Parent and Family Attendance
Parents are encouraged to attend the Congress at no additional charge. This allows for rich and meaningful “dinner table” conversations between parents and Delegates, as Delegates are motivated and inspired to see a bigger and bigger future for themselves during the Congress. Over 80% of parents and Delegates say they feel closer to one another as a result of attending the Congress.
About the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists
The Congress of Future Medical Leaders is sponsored by the National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists.
The National Academy of Future Physicians and Medical Scientists was chartered as a nonpartisan, taxpaying institution working outside government in a public-private partnership to identify, encourage, and mentor students who wish to devote their lives to the service of humanity as physicians or medical scientists.
The Academy accepts no public money. Extensive free services are self-funded through proceeds from events and conferences.
Questions?
If you have questions, please call the Office of Admissions directly at (617) 307-7425 or email Admissions@FutureDocs.com.
