University Times

The School of Medicine and the Department of Biological Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences will offer a new joint graduate program in integrative molecular biology (PIMB) in 2006. Recruiting will begin this fall.

“We wanted to develop a novel, cross-campus training program that will recruit outstanding graduate students to study molecular biology at the University,” said Gerard Apodaca, associate professor of medicine and cell biology and physiology. He was among more than a half of a dozen faculty members on a committee from the School of Medicine and the Department of Biological Sciences that developed the new program.

Apodaca said the program would help the University compete for students and training grants and increase Pitt’s national visibility in molecular biology.

Each year, the program will admit about 10 students, who will be trained, initially, by 25 faculty members from both schools.

Graham Hatfull, chairman of biological sciences, explained the focus and context of the new graduate program: “Molecular biology has become an exciting but a huge field of study. Within this particular program there will be two main areas of focus: genomics, proteomics and gene function. The new program will take advantage of all of the recent advances in studying complete genome sequences of organisms as well as how the gene products and proteins function.

“The second main area of focus, cellular and developmental dynamics, will use technological developments to understand how cells function, how cells interact and how those cellular functions and interactions lead to the development of organisms as we know them.”

The new degree program offers students the chance to earn their Ph.D. in four years instead of the typical five – seven years, according to Hatfull.

“We compressed the principal elements that students normally spend learning in their first year to a few short weeks or months,” he said. “And we give them an opportunity to examine labs, supervisors and projects and get them started on their thesis work extremely early on in this process.”

-Mary Ann Thomas