Joint Program in Molecules, Cells, and Organisms

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Program Abstract Biological science has rapidly evolved since the turn of the century; scientists are now able to routinely generate and analyze data with super-resolutions and at genome-, transcriptome-, proteome- and organism-wide scales. To rise to these challenges in the 21st century, the new generation of scientists must then be trained to have a broad and interdisciplinary knowledge of modern biology and experimental approaches in a highly collaborative environment. The training program in Molecules, Cells, and Organisms (MCO) is designed to train the next- generation biologists by allowing them access to faculty mentors representing all areas of modern biology— from biochemistry, biophysics, and structural biology to molecular, cell, neuro-, and developmental biology to genetics, genomics, and evolutionary biology to systems and computational biology. The training program is located at the Cambridge campus of Harvard University, and fifty-five faculty are drawn from five departments in the school of Faculty of Arts and Sciences, including, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and Physics, and faculty from the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Through its structure of core courses, quantitative biology courses, journal club, nanocourses, hands-on model systems workshops, lab rotations, seminars, scientific colloquia and retreats, the MCO program exposes its trainees from the start to a rigorous and multidisciplinary training, and helps them to develop outstanding reasoning, quantitative and creative skills required for modern biology, as well as oral and written communication. As biological sciences continue to attract scientist from all disciplines, the MCO program is designed to meet the challenge of training a new generation of biologists that can combine the methods of chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics and informatics with new concepts in cellular, molecular and behavioral biology. The mission of the program is to equip trainees with the necessary technical and operational skills that are necessary to be successful in interdisciplinary research, as exemplified by first-author publications and timely graduation.