Abstract: Neurobiology is an interdisciplinary. In recent years, more and more students with clinical medicine background were enrolled for postgraduate studies. To facilitate a rapid transformation from clinical medicine to basic medicine, and from a clinician to a skilled researcher, it was taken an initiative to encourage the students to pick the PhD projects on their own, with the supervision and direction of advisors, and assistance of technicians for conduction of the research projects. This initiative has been effective in that the PhD students with clinical background have secured research grants independently after graduation. Meantime, their clinical skills have also been further improved, benefi ting from the rigorous training of PhD studies.