Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology M.S.

Introduction

Students apply to the master’s degree program through the same portal as for the Ph.D. degree program. While the M.S. is research intensive, master’s students do not do research rotations; they must identify a research adviser prior to the training period. Students are required to participate in laboratory research meetings and departmental seminar series every quarter.

Requirements

Course Requirements

Complete the graduate core course:

BIOL 200A

Critical Analysis of Scientific Literature

BIOL 200A to be completed in the first year

And the following courses:

BIOL 288	Pedagogy in STEM	2
BIOL 289	Practice of Science	5

Enroll in the following seminar series each quarter:

BIOL 291	Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology Seminar	2
BIOL 292	MCD Seminar	0

Complete two approved advanced electives (list below). The two electives may be completed in either the first or second year

Approved Graduate Electives

(M.S. students must complete two electives)

Note: Lecture/lab combinations count as one course. For BME 163 and BME 263, only one of these courses will be counted toward fulfillment of the electives.

BIOL 200E	Experimental Design	3
BIOL 200F	Logic and Approaches to Scientific Discovery	5
BIOL 201	RNA Processing	5
BIOL 203	Ribosomes and Translation	5
BIOL 204	Chromatin	5
BIOL 205	Epigenetics	5
BIOL 206	Introduction to Stem Cell Biology	5
BIOL 206L	Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology	5
BIOL 215	Applied Statistics for Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology	5
BIOL 208	Cellular Signaling Mechanisms	5
BIOL 214	Advances in Cancer Biology	5
BIOL 217	Influence of Environment and Experience on Brain Development	5
BIOL 218	CRISPR/Cas Technologies	5
BIOL 226	Advanced Molecular Neuroscience	5
BIOL 228	Developmental Neurobiology	5
BIOL 290	Career Planning	2
BME 110	Computational Biology Tools	5
BME 130	Genomes	5
BME 163	Applied Visualization and Analysis of Scientific Data	3
BME 160	Research Programming in the Life Sciences	6
BME 263	Applied Visualization and Analysis of Scientific Data	5
BME 205	Bioinformatics Models and Algorithms	5
BME 229	Protein and Cell Engineering	5
BME 237	Applied RNA Bioinformatics	5
CHEM 200A	Advanced Biochemistry: Biophysical Methods	5
CHEM 200B	Advanced Biochemistry: Macromolecular Structure and Function	5
CHEM 200C	Advanced Biochemistry: Enzyme Mechanisms and Kinetics	5
CHEM 230	Grant Writing in Biomedical Research	5
ECE 236	Optics and Microscopy	5
ECE 237	Image Processing and Reconstruction	5
METX 202	Cell and Molecular Toxicology	5
METX 206A	Advanced Microbiology	5
METX 210	Molecular and Cellular Basis of Bacterial Pathogenesis	5
METX 238	Pathogenesis: Molecular Mechanisms of Disease	5
	PDP, Training in teaching offered by the Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators (ISEE)
STAT 108	Linear Regression	5
STAT 202	Linear Models in SAS	5
STAT 205B	Intermediate Classical Inference	5
STAT 266A /CSE 266A	Data Visualization and Statistical Programming in R	3

* Students who have had no or very little education in statistics should audit or take STAT 7 (5 credits) and perhaps also STAT 7L (2 credits) to learn basic statistical methodologies, before taking one of the graduate level courses.
** Students who take BIOL 290, Career Planning, take CHEM 230, Grant Writing, and/or participate in the Professional Development Program (PDP) may count only one of those as an advanced graduate elective.
*** Students may count either ECE 236 or ECE 237 but not both toward their advanced graduate electives.

Other Requirements

Write a master’s thesis based on original research (a scholarly dissertation of the literature and progress on research project; a peer-reviewed publication is not required for graduation).

Present a thesis defense in a departmental seminar. The student will present their research project in a public venue such as a departmental seminar or one of the research clubs (RNA club, chromatin club, neuro club, etc.).