Gain the skills you need to conduct research that helps develop new and improved medicines, genetically engineer hardier plants, or create safer and cleaner fuels, pesticides and industrial processes.
Learn fundamental laboratory skills such as how to purify a protein, determine the structure of a lipid, or grow a culture of cells. Understand key cellular processes such as DNA replication, protein secretion, energy metabolism, and immune responses.
Senior year, you will draw on everything you’ve learned when you design and carry out your own research project. For example, you might compare a normal protein to a mutant form to understand how a difference in protein folding inhibits the binding of oxygen. Receive guidance from a professor and present your findings at a poster competition.
Since 2000, our department has received $60 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and private funding agencies to study infectious diseases and conduct basic laboratory research.
We encourage our students to complete an internship the summer between their junior and senior years. Typically, they work in research laboratories.
