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.

MassBiologics is the only publicly owned, non-profit FDA-licensed[21] manufacturer of vaccine[22] and other biologic products in the United States.

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.