MSTP Leadership
Director
Professor
Andrew R. Zinn, M.D., Ph.D., is an alumnus of the UT Southwestern MSTP. He did residency training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in human genetics at the Whitehead Institute before returning to UTSW in 1993 to join the faculty of the McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development and the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Zinn maintained an NIH-funded laboratory for nearly 25 years, studying the genetic basis of human sex chromosome abnormalities and miscellaneous Mendelian diseases. His genetic research is best known for discoveries of mutations in the SIM1 gene causing severe obesity and in the POLA1 gene causing X-linked reticulate pigmentary disorder, a rare autoinflammatory disease. He has been director of the UTSW MSTP since 2008 and Dean of UT Southwestern Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences since 2013.
Assistant Director
Assistant Professor
Bret M. Evers, M.D., Ph.D., is an alumnus of the UT Southwestern MSTP and is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pathology and Ophthalmology. His doctoral thesis was performed in the laboratory of Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein and involved understanding the role of cholesterol homeostasis in craniofacial and hair follicle development. He completed his Anatomic Pathology residency and Neuropathology fellowship at UT Southwestern. While an Assistant Instructor, he completed an additional fellowship in Ophthalmic Pathology. Aside from his clinical duties in neuropathology and ophthalmic pathology, Dr. Evers is also the Director of Autopsy at UT Southwestern and Parkland Hospital. In 2018 Dr. Evers became the Director of the Histopathology Core and collaborates with numerous basic science researchers throughout the campus. In addition to his clinical and research endeavors, Dr. Evers teaches extensively in the pre-clerkship curriculum of the Medical School and within the Graduate School. He joined the MSTP administrative team in 2021, with one of his roles being to help guide students through their early medical school years and their transition into their graduate studies.
Director Emeritus
Professor
Michael S. Brown, M.D., Professor of Molecular Genetics, received his M.D. from The University of Pennsylvania and trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology before embarking on research on the molecular mechanism of cholesterol homeostasis for which he and Joseph Goldstein shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Brown was a founding director of the UTSW MSTP. He and Dr. Goldstein have supervised the thesis of 23 MSTP students, a number of whom have themselves gone on to illustrious careers. As MSTP Director Emeritus he participates in program seminars and activities, provides scientific and career advice to students, and advocates nationally for the importance of physician-scientists in biomedical research, academic medicine, and industry.