University Home

Locations | A - Z Index | Directory | Calendar Search Icon

Search: For another degree

Sound Interesting?

about the University and living in Idaho

Visit
the University of Idaho Campus

Apply
to the University and for Financial Aid

Related degrees

» Food Science, M.S. and Ph.D.
Apply microbiology, chemistry, nutrition, and engineering to develop new food products, improve the safety and quality of food products, and design safer and more energy-efficient food processes.

» Biology
Develop a high-level understanding in all levels of biological analysis with outstanding research opportunities

» A - Z Degree Index

Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry

M.S. or Ph.D. Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry

» Department of Biological Sciences » College of Science

INTRODUCTION
WHAT IT TAKES
WHAT PEOPLE DO
GET INVOLVED
FACULTY

Learn, practice, and teach research that helps us understand and cure diseases in plants, animals, and humans and treat toxic waste. Design and carry out scientific experiments. Carefully document and present findings.

Choose a program:

Master’s: Coursework and research generally takes two years. Work as a research assistant, and teach for at least one semester. Write a thesis. Publish a paper on your findings in an academic journal.

Ph.D.: Coursework and research generally takes four years. Pass preliminary and qualifying exams. Work as a professor’s research assistant, and teach for at least one year. Write a dissertation. A Ph.D. student identifies a problem and demonstrates how his or her research addresses the problem. Publish two articles on your findings.

Conduct a research project with the guidance of an advisor and graduate committee comprised of professors with valuable expertise. Present your findings in a lecture to your professors and peers. Demonstrate your expertise in a question and answer session.

Thesis: Develop a research goal based on work being done in your primary lab. Carry out scientific data collection with guidance from professors, and carefully document your results. Publish an article of your experiments and findings in an academic periodical. A thesis is excellent preparation for a Ph.D.

Dissertation: Write a proposal for a study that will seek to provide an answer to a significant question. Carry out scientific data collection and carefully document your results. Achieve significant independence in your research. Publish two articles of your experiments and findings in an academic periodical.

Research Assistant: All graduate students are assigned a primary laboratory to conduct grant-funded research. Experience three one-month rotations in different labs to determine the best fit. Positions are paid.

Teaching Assistant: In addition to research assistance, all graduate students are required to provide teaching assistance. Master’s students teach for at least one semester. Ph.D. students teach for at least one year.

Prepare for Success

Candidates for this program should have:

An undergraduate degree in a life or physical science
An interest in lab work and data collection
A desire to solve problems and think critically about some of society’s most pressing problems

Your First Year

Your first year, you should expect to:

Select the primary lab in which you will conduct your research
Select one professor from the department who will act as your advisor and serve on your graduate committee
Choose at least two other professors (one can be from outside the department) who will serve on your graduate committee
Work with your committee to plan the specifics of your coursework and research goals
Select an independent research topic

What You Can Do

Your research interests may lead you to become one of the following:

Pharmaceutical scientist: Design and synthesize new drugs and delivery systems. Collect data on patients in clinical trials, monitor their reactions, and analyze the results.

Virologist: Shed light on biological viruses and virus-like agents, including their structure, their classification and evolution, the diseases they cause, the techniques to isolate and culture them, and their potential uses in research and therapy.

Industrial scientist: Develop cleaner production processes that create less waste and use less energy and water in the production of detergents, pulp and paper, textiles, food, energy, and metals.

Agricultural scientist: Modify and improve crops such as rice, soybeans, and wheat to improve our food supply and reduce our dependence on conventional pesticides.

Opportunities

Work for biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies or for the food and agricultural industry. Conduct research in university or government laboratories.

Graduates with a Ph.D. may design and manage significant research projects, or operate their own labs. Graduates with a master’s degree generally assist in significant research projects, and manage portions of the research. Salaries start as high as 70,000.

Current Research

Research topics include examining different aspects of diseases to better understand solutions. For example:

Investigate how viruses like the common cold fool the immune system
Observe what happens in cell function when a carrier has a genetic condition such as polycystic kidney disease
Study how manipulating human cells changes immune responses
Investigate how bacteria can be used to produce medicine
Explore how microbes clean toxic waste

Activities

Attend national and regional meetings of professional organizations. Present your research findings. Meet potential employers and graduate students from other universities.

Graduate and Professional Student Association: Gain leadership experience and represent your department in UI student government.

Life Sciences Club: Teach lab techniques to school children, learn about internships, and meet experts in the field. Take trips to biotech companies, laboratories, breweries, wineries, research centers, and hot springs.

UI Environmental Club: See what you and others can do to live more sustainably.

Annual Student Research Expo: Compete for cash prizes awarded for graduate research presentations.

College of Graduate Studies Awards: Share in the annual recognition of graduate students engaged in outstanding teaching, research, leadership, and mentoring.

Hands-On Experience

Gain hands-on experiences like these:

Teaching Assistant: Work directly with students. Teach fundamental laboratory skills such as how to purify a protein, determine the structure of a lipid, or grow a culture of cells. Explain and demonstrate key cellular processes such as DNA replication, protein secretion, energy metabolism, and immune responses. Grade papers and exams. Positions are paid.

Research Assistant: Help professors with grant-funded research. For example, collect data on the ability of virus-infected cells to repair DNA, the relationship between protein flexibility and biological function, or how the genetic makeup of crops influences nutritional value. Positions are paid.

International collaboration: Travel to use special equipment or understand an issue from a new perspective. For example, use a unique high-powered microscope in Vancouver, Canada to observe the movement of fluorescent proteins or exchange information with scientists in a country like Sweden.

Volunteer: Give back and gain new experiences. Assist hospital medical staff as they care for patients. Treat sick pets at a veterinary clinic. Work at a clinic in a developing country.

Onesmo Balemba, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
My research focuses on the pathophysiology of diseases that affect gastrointestinal (GI) functions. My aim is to gain a better understanding of neuromuscular and immune system host responses in diabetes, and infectious diarrhea, and therapeutic strategies for these conditions.
» View Onesmo Balemba's profile

Celeste Brown, Ph.D.
Research Professor
Dr. Celeste Brown has two research areas, how gene regulation changes in response to selection, and the evolution of disordered proteins. The link between these two disparate areas is that often proteins involved in gene regulation are disordered. The gene regulation studies involve laboratory-based research and the disordered protein studies involve bioinformatics approaches.
» View Celeste Brown's Profile

John A. Byers, Ph.D.
Professor
I am an animal behaviorist primarily interested in behavioral development, play, sexual selection and female mate choice. I am a member and Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society. I maintain a longitudinal study of a population of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) on the National Bison Range in western Montana. Projects now underway in this study, which has run since 1981, are measurement of costs and benefits of female mate choice and evaluation of the fitness consequences of inbreeding in the population.
» View John Byers' Profile

Joseph G. Cloud, Ph.D.
Professor
Projects in Dr. Cloud’s research program are primarily directed toward understanding germ cell development in salmonids and the establishment of a germplasm repository for threatened and endangered fish. Ongoing research projects in the lab include the cryopreservation and transplantation of salmonid gonads and the isolation, culture, and reestablishment of germinal stem cells. Additionally, sperm collected from numerous populations of Snake River chinook salmon and steelhead are cryopreserved and stored annually.
» View Joseph Cloud's Profile

Douglas G. Cole, Ph.D.
Department Associate Chair and Professor
Research interests: Intraflagellar Transport, IFT may transport axonemal precursors, IFT polypeptides, IFT raft architecture, Kinesin-II, the anterograde IFT motor
» View Doug Cole's profile

Larry J. Forney, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor
Director of IBEST
The research done in Dr. Larry Forney’s laboratory centers on the diversity and distribution of prokaryotes. Both field and laboratory studies are done to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of community diversity, as well as factors that influence the dynamics of inter- and intra-species competition. In addition research is done to understand how spatial structure and the resulting environmental gradients influence the tempo and trajectory of adaptive radiations in bacterial species and the maintenance of diversity. Most of these studies are highly interdisciplinary in nature, and done in collaboration with mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, geologists, environmental engineers, physicians, and clinical scientists.
» View Larry Forney's profile

Elizabeth (Lee) Ann Fortunato, Ph.D.
Professor
Research interests: Understanding the mechanism behind the development of morbidity and mortality in infants congenitally infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)
» View Lee Fortunato's Profile

James A. Foster, Ph.D.
Professor
Dr. Foster’s current research is focused on characterizing evolutionarily permissible ecological structures in microbial ecosystems and on developing bioinformatics for very large sequence datasets. He continues to examine simulations of evolutionary processes to design complex artifacts and optimize functions. He works in close collaboration with biologists, statisticians, mathematicians, and computer scientists.
» View James Foster's profile

Peter G. Fuerst, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
My lab is attempting to identify and understand the molecular cues that promote development of the nervous system by studying mice that have mutations in recognition factors and that express fluorescent markers that label specific neural cell types.
» View Peter Fuerst's Profile

Luke J. Harmon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Our research investigates ecological and evolutionary aspects of adaptive radiations. Current projects span a wide range of taxa and time scales, including adaptive radiation in E. coli biofilms, evolution of island lizards in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, and macroevolutionary dynamics of vertebrates. You will find more information about all of these projects on the research and publications pages.
» View Luke Harmon's Profile

Patricia L. Hartzell, Ph.D.
Professor
Research interests: The mechanisms by which the complex prokaryote, Myxococcus xanthus, coordinates two independent motility systems during growth and development.
» View Patricia Hartzell's Profile

Paul Hohenlohe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Our research focuses on the genomic architecture of evolving populations, developing sophisticated theory and analytical tools to harness the power of modern DNA sequencing technology. We address basic questions of evolutionary biology as well as applications to conservation and cancer biology.
» View Paul Hohenlohe's profile

Jill L. Johnson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Research interests: Role of molecular chaperones in the cell, especially the study of a chaperone called Hsp90 (90 kDa heat shock protein).
» View Jill Johnson's profile

Craig P. McGowan
Assistant Professor
My research interests are centered on understanding the relationships between the musculoskeletal morphology of terrestrial vertebrate animals (including humans) and the biomechanics and neural control of locomotor performance.

» cpmcgowan@uidaho.edu

Craig Miller, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
» crmiller@uidaho.edu

Tanya Miura, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Research interests: Regulation of the Immune Response to Coronavirus Infection in the Lung.
» View Tanya Miura's profile

James J. Nagler, Ph.D.
Interim Chair and Professor of Biological Sciences
Associate Director of WSU/UI Center for Reproductive Biology
The Nagler laboratory studies the effect of environmental factors, such as contaminants, photoperiod and diet on the reproductive biology of salmonid fishes.
» View Dr. Nagler's profile

Scott L. Nuismer, Ph.D.
Professor
My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of species interactions. The overall aim is to better understand how coevolution shapes patterns of biodiversity and the geographic distributions of interacting species. Work in my lab addresses these issues with a combination of mathematical modeling and field studies.
» View Scott Nuismer's Profile

Barrie Robison, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
My general research interests lie at the interface between genomics, evolutionary biology, and fisheries biology. Specific areas of research emphasis in my lab include the genetic architecture of complex traits, the evolution of locally adaptive phenotypes, and genomic analysis of behavioral variation in fish. I employ two study systems to investigate these issues, the rainbow trout and the zebrafish.
View Barrie's profile
» brobison@uidaho.edu

Deborah Stenkamp, Ph.D.
Professor
Stenkamp’s research interests center on the examination of cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebrate retinal development and regeneration, with a specific focus on photoreceptor differentiation, using zebrafish as the primary experimental model.
» View Deborah Stenkamp's profile

John "Jack" M. Sullivan, Ph.D.
Professor
Our understanding of the processes of nucleotide substitution (DNA sequence evolution) has been expanding greatly over the last 10 years. Furthermore, it has become apparent that ignoring such processes as heterogeneity of base composition, substitution pattern, and rate variation among nucleotide sites can compromise attempts to estimate phylogeny from DNA sequence data. Therefore, model-based analyses of DNA sequence data have become increasingly wide spread because such approaches afford the investigator the opportunity to account for such processes explicitly.
» View Jack Sullivan's Profile

Eva Top, Ph.D.
Professor
Director of BCB
My research is currently focused on the evolution and ecology of plasmids that transfer to and replicate in a broad range of bacteria. Plasmids are mobile genetic elements found in most bacteria. Because they readily transfer between different types of bacteria under natural conditions, they play an important role in rapid bacterial adaptation to changing environments. A good example is the current epidemic of multiple antibiotic resistance in human pathogens, which is largely due to the spread of multi-drug resistance plasmids. Although plasmid-mediated gene transfer is now recognized as a key mechanism in the alarming rise of antibiotic resistance, little is known about their host range, their ability to invade bacterial populations in the absence of selection, and their genetic diversity. We are addressing these questions using various Proteobacteria and plasmids as model systems.
» View Eva Top's Profile

Holly A. Wichman, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
The Wichman Lab studies viruses and their subcellular relatives, transposable elements. These two lines of research are united by a molecular approach and a strong evolutionary context. L1 elements have been active in mammals for over 150 million years and make up about 20% of the genome. Most of the copies in the genome are ancient molecular fossils, so it is a challenge to sift through all of the old copies to find those that have been recently active.
View Holly's profile
» hwichman@uidaho.edu