The Saint Louis University School of Medicine is an academic unit of Saint Louis University. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,500 graduate and 6,500 undergraduate students taught by over 900 faculty. The school was established in 1818 and was the first chartered university west of the Mississippi River. In 1834, the first Master of Arts degree was conferred and in 1880, Saint Louis University conferred the first Doctor of Philosophy degree. The present School of Medicine was established in 1903 when the University acquired the Marion Sims-Beaumont College of Medicine. Today, the School of Medicine's basic sciences faculty guide the research programs and academic studies of approximately 85 basic sciences graduate students. The University confers the Ph.D. degree in Anatomy and Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology, and Pharmacological and Physiological Science. The University also awarded the Ph.D in Molecular and Cellular Biology; this program has now been melded into the departmental programs.

From 1985 to 1993, there have been 107 Ph.D. degrees awarded in the various graduate programs in the School of Medicine: 29 in Cell and Molecular Biology, 24 in Biochemistry; 22 in Pharmacology, 12 in Microbiology, 12 in Physiology, 5 in Anatomy and Neurobiology, and 2 in Pathology.