The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth is a community of resourceful innovators who dare to transform the world. Since its founding in 1797, through pioneering biomedical discoveries, a persistent willingness to challenge the status quo in health care, and the training of physicians and scientists who take on the world’s problems as their own, Geisel has amplified Dartmouth’s academic vitality and global impact.

Geisel is distinctive among medical schools for its equal strength in biomedical discovery and health care delivery science, and its integration of the two across its research and educational programs. Central to the school’s mission is the recognition that as scientists break new ground in understanding health and disease, these advances must be made widely accessible to those who need them. And while medicine embraces the power of science and technology, medical practice must remain intensely personal, honoring the needs, values, and individual biology of each person.

The faculty at the Geisel School of Medicine is nationally recognized for research excellence, including leadership in genetics, bioinformatics, population health, cancer, cystic fibrosis, neuroscience, psychiatry, and healthcare delivery science research, among others.  The more than 2,000 members of our faculty are drawn not only from core departments and institutes within Dartmouth College and our three major clinical partners: Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H), the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center (WRJ VAMC), and California Pacific Medical Center, as well as from community practices from Maine to Alaska.

Geisel has strong research ties, not only with D-H and the WRJ VAMC, but also with Dartmouth’s School of Arts & Sciences, Guarini School of Graduate & Advances Studies, Thayer School of Engineering, and Tuck School of Business.

While the scope of research at Geisel is broad; some of its research highlights include:

• Has total research funding that is approximately $130 million and accounts for more than 70 percent of Dartmouth College’s total research activity

• It is home to three NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBREs) and the state’s NIH INBRE (IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence) award

• In concert with D-H, is home to the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of the 51 NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers

• One of 50 NIH designated Clinical & Translational Science Institutes (CTSA)

• Pioneers in the field of Health Care Delivery Science with the Dartmouth Atlas

• Pioneers in the development of vaccine treatments against tuberculosis (DAR-901)

• Pioneers in the development of bi-specific antibodies for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease

• Pioneers in the development of checkpoint inhibitors in cancer immunotherapy

• Pioneers in the development of shared decision-making tools and co-production models in health care delivery

• Pioneers in educational programs to provide value-based health care that is ethically, scientifically and managerially sound (MHCDS)

• Pioneers in the discovery of the fundamental mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms (Clock genes)

• Pioneers in the discovery and understanding the function of micro RNAs

Websites for Key Centers and Institutes at Geisel and its academic partners related to support of the biomedical research enterprise:

• ALS Center
• bioMT: Institute for Biomolecular Targeting (NIH COBRE)
• C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth
• Center for Genomic Medicine
• Center for Health Equity
• Center for Learning and Professional Development
• Center for Molecular, Cellular and Translational Immunology Research (NIH COBRE)
• Center for Molecular Epidemiology (NIH COBRE)
• Center for Program Design and Evaluation at Dartmouth (CPDE)
• Center for Quantitative Biology (NIH COBRE)
• Center for Surgical Innovation
• Center for Technology and Behavioral Health
• Children’s Environmental Health & Disease Prevention Research Center
• Collaboratory for Healthcare and Biomedical Informatics
• Dartmouth Biomedical Engineering Center
• Dartmouth Centers for Health and Aging
• Dartmouth Lung Biology Center for Molecular, Cellular, and Translational Research (NIH COBRE)
• Informatics Collaboratory for Design, Development and Dissemination (ic3d)
• National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• New Hampshire IDeA Network of Biological Research Excellence (NH-INBRE)
• Norris Cotton Cancer Center
• The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice

Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Leadership

Since 2014, Duane Compton has served as Dean of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, where he is also the Senior Associate Dean for Research and a Professor of Biochemistry.

Dr. Compton received his PhD from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1988 and completed his postdoctoral training in the field of cell biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was recruited to the faculty at Dartmouth in 1993, and is a leader in graduate and medical student education and a distinguished National Institutes of Health-funded researcher.

In his research program, Dr. Compton focuses on understanding how cancer cells acquire abnormal chromosome numbers and how those alterations influence cancer cell growth.  He has published more than 70 articles, and images of his work have been displayed on the cover of 15 different journals. He serves on national committees with the American Society for Cell Biology and American Association of Medical Colleges and reviews grant applications for the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.  He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In 2013 he earned a MERIT award from the NIH to provide long-term support for his research program.

Dr. Compton is committed to graduate and medical education.  He has graduated 14 PhD students and has served on committees for more than 50 graduate students.  He received the Graduate Faculty Mentor Award in 2007.  He spent six years as Biochemistry course director for the first year medical student curriculum and received the Distinguished Lecturer Award in 2004. He was a member of the inaugural class of faculty elected to the Geisel Academy of Master Faculty Educators in 2012.  Dr. Compton is an avid snowboarder who lives with his wife in Lyme, NH.