Program leading to a Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics

This is an interdisciplinary graduate program at Rutgers at the interfaces between the Biological, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences (BioMaPS). The program is designed to serve the needs of the increasing number of graduate students from the physical, mathematical, and computational sciences who are being drawn to the biological sciences and, more generally, to educate a new generation of life-sciences researchers with more sophisticated quantitative skills. In addition, the BioMaPS program provides the necessary infrastructure (courses and faculty) for students in the biological sciences who wish to specialize in quantitative biology.

Students interested in quantitative biology whose primary background is in Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, Computer Science or one of the other physical sciences should consider applying directly to the BioMaPS Graduate Program. Students interested in quantitative biology whose primary background is in the biological sciences should apply to the Rutgers/UMDNJ Graduate Programs in Molecular Biosciences which has an overlapping, but different, set of program requirements. Many Rutgers/UMDNJ faculty serve as graduate student thesis advisors in both the BioMaPS and Molecular Biosciences programs.

The BioMaPS Graduate Program includes:

• A new interdisciplinary curriculum for students interested in research at the BioMaPS Interfaces, including courses in Mathematical and Computational Techniques in Biology, Structural Biology, Bioinformatics, Data Mining and Pattern Recognition, Biophysics, and Physical Biochemistry.

• Transition courses that provide students from the mathematical and physical sciences with little or no previous background in biology a rigorous introduction to (i) relevant areas of chemistry and biochemistry, and (ii) molecular, cell biology, and genetics.

• BioMaPS courses at the advanced undergraduate level which will help students admitted into the Rutgers/UMDNJ Graduate Programs in Molecular Biosciences with limited quantitative backgrounds to make the transition into the more advanced quantitative biology courses and/or into BioMaPS research.

• A number of interdisciplinary seminar series, workshops, and visitor programs focused on current developments at the frontiers of biomedical research.