UMass Medical School

The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a leader in medical education, biomedical research and health care. As the commonwealth’s first and only public medical school, UMMS was founded in 1962 to provide affordable, high-quality medical education to state residents and to increase the number of primary care physicians practicing in underserved areas of the state. More than 40 years later, UMMS retains the pioneering spirit that attracted its founding faculty and students, even as it has matured to include the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Graduate School of Nursing, and become one of the nation’s top fifty medical schools.

Today, UMMS is home to 2,488 full- and part-time faculty, 458 medical students, 419 biomedical sciences students and 155 nursing students.



Beyond its core mission of distinction in health sciences education, UMMS has quickly become a major center for research, with UMMS researchers contributing to pivotal advances in HIV, cancer, diabetes, infectious disease, and in understanding the molecular basis of disease.

Over the past two decades, UMMS has experienced a period of sustained and substantial growth in its research enterprise.

From FY’94 to FY’08, NIH funding of UMMS researchers has more than tripled ($35 million to $128 million), and from FY’02 to FY’09, total research and development expenditures at UMMS have increased 50% ($133 million to $200 million).

In the last year of the NIH rankings (2005), UMMS ranked 39 out of 125 in the NIH ranking of all U.S. medical schools.

In terms of funding for the basic sciences, UMMS has had even more success with a ranking of 18 out of 125 according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Linked to the growth of NIH funding, there has been a surge in external recognition of UMMS faculty. Prominent amongst those awards was the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine presented to Dr. Craig Mello and the 2008 Lasker Award given to Dr. Victor Ambros. These accomplishments are truly remarkable and point to the groundbreaking research that occurs on the medical school campus every day. The prestigious Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award are but two of many academic distinctions achieved by UMMS faculty.

In recognition of their potential to make significant contributions to science, five UMMS faculty members have been named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators.

Two faculty members from UMMS have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and one to the Royal Society in the United Kingdom. Such elections are considered amongst the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a scientist or engineer.

Three UMMS faculty members were awarded grants from the Keck Foundation, which supports the work of leading researchers to lay the groundwork for breakthrough discoveries.

The American Diabetes Association has selected two UMMS researchers for the Banting Medal, which is the association’s highest honor for individual long-term discovery in the study of diabetes.

Three UMMS researchers were funded by the Ellison Medical Foundation, which supports creative and typically under-funded research on aging.

Recently, two members of the UMMS faculty have been selected to receive the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. In virtually every metric used to benchmark research progress—amount of federal research funding, scope and extent of faculty discoveries, external faculty recognition, number of patents filed and issued, number of licenses and material transfer agreements enacted and growth of life sciences commercial activity in close proximity to the campus—UMMS has made outstanding strides.

About UMass Memorial Health Care

UMass Memorial Health Care is the largest health care system in Central and Western Massachusetts, and the clinical partner of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

UMass Memorial includes UMass Memorial Medical Center (Worcester, MA) and four community hospitals: Clinton Hospital (Clinton, MA), HealthAlliance Hospital (Leominster and Fitchburg, MA), Marlborough Hospital (Marlborough, MA) and Wing Memorial Hospital (Palmer, MA). Each hospital is fully accredited by the Joint Commission.

Our system also includes home health and hospice programs, behavioral health programs and community-based physician practices. Approximately 1,600 physicians are members of our active medical staff, and we have 13,500 employees, including 3,000 registered nurses. In total, our hospitals have 1,111 beds. In 2008, we treated 58,762 inpatients, and counted more than one million outpatients visits. We delivered 5,176 babies and our emergency departments handled 254,400 visits.

With our highly sophisticated technology and support services, UMass Memorial provides the region with specialists nationally acclaimed for their work in areas such as cardiology, orthopedics, cancer, newborn intensive care, children’s services, women’s services, emergency medicine and trauma.

UMass Memorial Medical Center is accredited by the American College of Surgeons as the only designated Level One Trauma Center for adults and children in Central Massachusetts. Our University Campus is home to the new Duddie Massad Emergency and Trauma Center and Life Flight, New England’s first hospital-based air ambulance. The region’s only Level III Newborn Intensive Care Unit resides on our Memorial Campus.

Visit the Cecil B. Day Lab page at UMass Medical’s web site.

“I get out of bed with a smile on my face because there is now optimism. It may prolong my life, it may save my life, but that’s something no one before me has had,”

Richard Kennedy - President

The Angel Fund is special.

We are not a national charity – we are local. We have very low overhead and administrative costs. Our offices are located in the law firm of Nigro Pettipet and Lucas, courtesy of Directors Jan and Eugene Nigro. That means that The Angel Fund has no rent, no utility bills, no high-paid executives. Angel Fund President Rich Kennedy and the board members are not paid.

Why are they so passionate?

Because most have lived through the heartbreak of seeing their loved one live with ALS and lose their battle to this horrific disease. They have made a commitment to support Dr. Brown and his researchers until a cure is found, the goal of our original Angel, Ginny DelVecchio. They have a sense of urgency to find a treatment and cure by supporting the gene silencing therapy. We know the patients and their families – and the patients know us.

The Angel Fund Mission

Our mission is to support ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) research and scientific investigations at the Cecil B. Day Laboratory by raising funds through events, campaigns, foundation grants and numerous other community outreach activities, to aid in finding a cause, treatment and cure for ALS.

Angel Fund supporters make a difference in fighting ALS, and you can be one of them.

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