Graduate Student Manual

Course Requirements for Cell and Molecular Biology Track

All graduate students are required to take a minimum of six (6) courses listed below. However, the Advising Committee may recommend additional course work depending upon each student's strengths and weaknesses.

Foundation Course (Required)

BIOL 700 - Topics in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology

Core Courses (Required)

BIOL 600 - Cell Biology
BIOL 540 - Genetic Systems

Core Electives (Choose two of the following)

BIOL 446 - Statistics (students without a strong background in statistics will be required to take this course)
BIOL 402 - Biochemistry
BIOL 536 - Computational Biology
BIOL 555 - Control Gene Expression
CAMB 511 - Principles of Development
BIOL 531 - Introduction to Genome Science
BIOL 535 - Introduction to Bioinformatics

Track Electives (choose at least one of the following)

BIOL 404 - Immunology
BIOL 406 - Infectious Diseases
BIOL 407 - Cancer Cell Biology
BIOL 436 - Molecular Physiology
BIOL 451 - Systems Neuroscience
BIOL 475 - Microbiology and Biotechnology
BIOL 480 - Advanced Cell Biology
BIOL 483 - Epigenetics
BIOL 484 - Cell Motility and Cytoskeleton
BIOL 486 - Cell Division and Mitotic Spindle
BIOL 527 - Advanced Molecular Biology and Genetics
BIOL 537 - Advanced Computational Biology

Students can also take courses from the Medical School as part of the electives with permission of the Advising Committee. The schedule for Biomedical Graduate Studies courses can be viewed at http://www.med.upenn.edu/bgs/course_info.shtml.

In addition to course work, students will also be expected to do lab rotations and/or independent research each semester and for 10 weeks during the summer. Please review lab rotation policies in this handbook.

Once a student has completed course work as stated by the Advising Committee, program requirements such as lab rotations, indpendent study, teaching duties, and passed both the Qualifying Exam and Preliminary Exam, the student is on dissertation status. Students will automatically be reigstered for BIOL 995 - Dissertation each semester.

Depending upon funding, graduate students take three or four courses per semester.

First-year students funded by Educational Fellowships may take up to 8 courses units (CUs): 4 in the fall semester and 4 in the spring semester.

Usually, second-year students are funded by Teaching Fellowships. If continued course work is necessary, students funded by Teaching Fellowships can take 3 courses each semester.

Students funded by other means, such as Research Fellowships or Training Grants, take 4 CUs for the fall and spring semesters for a total of 8 courses per year.

For Biology course schedules, please visit web page, http://www.bio.upenn.edu/courses/.

Graduate Student Manual Index