The core of the ICBM are 220 Faculty members formerly grouped in several departments distributed throughout the Faculty of Medicine. About 160 of these Faculty members are actively involved in research. During the past half century, research-academicians of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile have been a cornerstone of the country's research development in biomedical sciences. The tremendous and rapid increase in scientific knowledge during the past decades although required a new structure of organization, structure aimed to unite laboratories with common goals in order to increase there scientific productivity. The ICBM is the response to this need and research-academicians are currently grouped in 79 accredited laboratories (55 fully established and 24 developing) organized within 9 Disciplinary Programs e.g. Physiology and Biophysics, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology, Human Genetics, Immunology, Microbiology and Mycology, Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Pathophysiology, and Virology (see cover figure). The Program is responsible for providing insights for the progress of the discipline, training of new Faculty within the field, and assurance of high quality pre and postgraduate teaching. The 79 laboratories develop research within a wide spectrum of biomedical areas of national and international relevance. The ICBM has identified six areas of integrated research potential where it has strength and actively promotes new research within these areas e.g., Bioinformatics and genomics, signal transduction, developmental biology, neurosciences, environmental adaptation, and infectious diseases. Besides the core of research-academicians the ICBM counts with the support of over 250 technicians with different levels of qualification, and administrators that aid research and teaching activities.

The ICBM has a leading national role in the training of graduate students in biomedical sciences. It harbors the largest Ph.D. Program in the country with a total of 106 students in 2005. A total of 140 students are developing there Masters degrees in Biomedical Sciences in ICBM laboratories. The Institute is responsible for teaching all basic and pre-clinical science disciplines to circa 1600 students per year of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, the largest and most prestigious Faculty of the country, and one of the most prestigious with Latin America.

The scientific productivity of the ICBM meets International Standards and is at the top of the National Institutions. In terms of competitive grant awards the Institute manages 50 to 60 FONDECYT Grants per year. FONDECYT represents the main governmental granting fund for scientific research in Chile providing Grants that are in the range of 150.000 to 250.000 US$ per project for a two to four year period. This ranks the ICBM as the fifth Institution in Chile with most FONDECYT Grants surpassing most of the Chilean Universities. In addition, researchers of the ICBM currently manage larger Program Project Grants including a FONDAP (provided by the Chilean Government with US$ 1 million per year for five years), three FONDEF (Grants for applied scientific research for a total of approximately US$ 1 million), a Millennium Nucleus (Government and World Bank funding for Program Projects of international quality for a total of US$ 1.5 million). During the years 2000-2003 a total of 452 ISI publication were generated by researchers of the ICBM, many in world class Journals such as JBC, PNAS, Endocrinology, J. Cell Science, J. Physiol., Biophys. J., J. Neuroscience, etc.

The ICBM has and continues to develop initiatives and policies favoring its main thrive for scientific excellence:

An External Scientific Review Board formed by recognized scientists from different countries evaluate the Progress of the Institution and the different Programs every three years. Recommendations from this panel are considered for steering the ICBM

The Institution has placed efforts in developing centralized facilities to support research activities. The Center for Large Equipment and Technologic Assistance (CESAT) supplies the different laboratories as well as extramural researchers with a capacity for use of large equipment such as: confocal and electron microscopy, ultracentrifuges, scintillation counters, cell sorting real time RT-PCR, gene microarray reader, DNA sequencing and synthesis. A Centralized Animal Facility that meets international requirements has been created and currently harbors a large number of genetically determined rodent strains and will be soon ready to house transgenic animals and to cryogenically preserve embryos. Larger animal surgery as well as a zebra fish animal facilities are also available.

Academic recruitment is based on scientific merit and new Faculty are to enter the Institute at the Postdoctoral level or equivalent. The Institute has developed a Program for Academic Renovation based on a pre selection of postdoctoral candidates that are currently developing their training programs in prestigious Universities in Europe and the United States. These candidates maintain close ties with researchers of the ICBM and plan to apply for an academic position upon the successful completion of their Program.