It’s been an exciting year of national and international recognition for the UC Davis School of Medicine’s 2024 research and education achievements.

For the third consecutive year, UC Davis garnered more than $1 billion in external research funding. Our school’s internationally recognized research community generated 40% of that total, with $400 million in external research funding. The Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research again placed our school among the nation’s leading medical schools for National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding — with four of our departments ranked in the top 10 nationally.

This year, we also received national media coverage of the life-changing results of our BrainGate clinical trial brain-computer interface, which translates brain signals into speech with up to 97% accuracy — the most accurate system of its kind. This represents significant progress toward restoring communication for people who can’t speak due to paralysis or neurological conditions such as ALS.

In August, we also celebrated the graduation of a healthy, active 2-year-old from his in-person follow-up testing phase of the CuRe trial, the world’s first stem cell treatment for spina bifida delivered during fetal surgery at UC Davis Health. Our CuRe trial health care team, who have watched him grow since his birth, will monitor him until he is 6 years old.

This fall, Garen J. Wintemute, UC Davis emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program, was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Membership in NAM, an international body of 2,400 leaders, is considered one of the highest honors in the field of health and medicine.

U.S. News & World Report ranked us as the country’s fourth most diverse medical school and Tier 1 in primary care training in 2024.

This year, we partnered with Cal Poly Humboldt to launch the Huwighurruk Health Postbaccalaureate Program, to enroll premed students passionate about providing health care to Native American and Alaska Native communities. This is one of our many innovative pathway programs designed to train the physician workforce California’s communities need.

These are just a few examples of how the UC Davis School of Medicine continues to be a national leader in all its mission areas. Thank you for supporting our work to transform lives and achieve better health for all.