Graduate Program in Molecular Biology

The graduate program in the Department of Molecular Biology fosters the intellectual development of modern biologists. We welcome students from a variety of educational backgrounds, and offer an educational program that goes well beyond traditional biology. The molecular biology department at Princeton is a tightly knit, cohesive group of scientists that includes undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty with diverse but overlapping interests. Graduate students have a wide choice of advisers, with a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary interests and research objectives.

The graduate program offers each entering student the opportunity, with the help of faculty advisers, to design the intellectual program that best meets his or her unique scientific interests. Each student chooses a series of research rotations with faculty members in molecular biology and associated departments (chemistry, computer science, ecology and evolutionary biology, engineering, physics and psychology). Entering students, with the aid of the graduate committee, select core and elective courses from a large number of offerings in a variety of departments and disciplines. This combination of a cohesive department, one-on-one advising, and individualized programs of course work and research provides an ideal environment for graduate students to flourish as independent scientists.

Areas of concentration include biochemistry, biophysics, cancer, cell biology, computation and modeling, development, evolution, genetics, genomics, microbiology and virology, neuroscience, policy and structural biology.