Medical institute to award 80 biological sciences fellowships

The fellowship awards, which run for three years and can be extended for an additional two, provide a $15,000-per-year stipend and $15,000 annual cost-of-education allowance.

Fellowships are available to students who have completed less than one year of study toward master's or doctorate degrees in any one of 17 fields of biological science.

The institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to biomedical research and education.

Under the fellowship program, the institute spends $11 million per year to support about 400 graduate students at colleges and universities throughout the United States.

The institute has been granting awards since 1988, according to program coordinator Judith Willis of the National Research Council, which administers the awards on behalf of the Hughes institute.

Throughout the history of the Hughes awards, only two University of Arizona students have received fellowships, Willis said, "Although many of the larger research-oriented universities have higher concentrations of fellows.

"Each year we receive about 1,400 applications, so we consider it a very competitive fellowship," she said.

The UA has received over $2 million from the Hughes medical institute since 1993, the majority of which has funded the Undergraduate Biology Research Project in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.