Andres Santos is a 1st year resident who started his pathology residency training at the Brigham & Women's Hospital at Boston, Massachusetts. He completed medical school at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine in El Paso, Texas.

The Southern Medical Association 1924 Medical Student Scholarship provided Andres and his family substantial help during a time of financial hardship. He worked as a tutor at his medical school and drove for 18-20 hours per week for Uber and Lyft to provide for his family. These activities hindered his professional growth as a physician scientist. After experiencing first-hand the challenges economically disadvantaged students face during medical school, his goal is to create more opportunities like the SMA 1924 Medical Student Scholarship to continue helping future physicians-in-training.

Andres is certain that a career in academic medicine suits his personal interests in translational research and teaching future medical students. He plans to use his doctoral training in molecular virology along with his training in neuropathology to become a leader in the field of oncolytic viruses to infect and kill brain tumor cells. He first became interested in the field by attending the American Society for Virology annual meetings during his PhD training. However, after seeing his best friend’s father struggling with glioblastoma and the emotional impact it has on close family members, he became passionate about joining the ongoing search for ways to treat this devastating disease.