About

The Seattle Children's Research Institute Research Training Program (RTP) is a free, four-week summer research experience for current 10th and 11th graders, held July 13–August 7, 2026, at Seattle Children's Research Institute in downtown Seattle. The program is supported in part by NIH's Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) and provides a $2,000 stipend to participants to offset transportation and meal costs.

Over four weeks, students work Monday through Friday, 8:30AM–3PM, receiving hands-on training in biomedical research laboratory techniques including microscopy, agarose gel electrophoresis, immunoassays, white blood cell isolation, polymerase chain reaction, bacterial transformation, and gene editing. Lectures cover biochemistry, immunology, infectious disease, and global and public health. Students complete an independent research project, attend workshops on college readiness and career exploration, and gain exposure to the research environment at one of the country's leading pediatric research institutes. The program is not clinical — students work in research labs, not with patients.

The application ran January 5–March 8, 2026, with letters of recommendation due March 29. A mandatory in-person orientation is required on May 21, 2026. The program is competitive with a limited number of spots; exact cohort size is not published, but the program has placed over 125 students since its founding. Students must be able to commute to downtown Seattle daily — no housing is provided — and must have a Social Security Number or ITIN to receive the stipend.

For a Seattle-area student with genuine interest in biomedical research, the RTP offers authentic lab training at a research institution genuinely focused on pediatric medicine, at no cost.