With the exception of MD/PhD students, degree candidates were formerly required to be Massachusetts residents, a policy which has changed beginning with the entering class of 2016.

[8] Over half of each graduating class enters primary-care residencies, a trend underscoring the school's founding mission, though that figure has decreased in recent years.

According to the GSBS website, the school offers students a multidisciplinary program of study, in which they have freedom of choice in curriculum and in the selection of mentors for their graduate-thesis research.

[citation needed] UMMS faculty discovered the link between the immune system and type-1 diabetes, found the genetic cause underlying the third-most-common form of the muscular dystrophies, and established the fundamental difference between HIV and other retroviruses.

Mello and Fire received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries related to RNA interference.

Co-developed with Serum Institute of India, it invented a fast-acting anti-Rabies drug called Rabies Human Monoclonal Antibody (RMAb).

[27] Notable faculty members include: The hospital and clinical components of UMMS are part of UMass Memorial Health Care (UMMHC).

UMass Memorial is a multibillion-dollar health-care system consisting of acute-care hospitals, ambulatory clinics and a network of primary care physicians and specialists throughout central Massachusetts.

[31] Its largest publicly funded affiliate in the field of cancer research is the Quality Assurance Review Center (QARC), located in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

[32] UMMHC also maintains three community hospitals:[31] The Albert Sherman Center, a 512,000 square foot biomedical research and education facility, was unveiled to the public on January 30, 2013, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Gov.

The UMMS extended campus includes the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute, labs and offices in the Massachusetts Biotechnology Research Park in Worcester; sites in Shrewsbury and Auburn; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center in Waltham and the New England Newborn Screening Program and Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories in Jamaica Plain and Mattapan.