Depth Biology Foundations:Quantitative Scientists(RMI)

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Faculty members from Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) propose to develop a new curriculum that will enable students with advanced training in mathematics and the physical sciences, but with a more limited background in biology, to acquire the skills necessary to become productive researchers in the life sciences. The curriculum will be a significant part of the extensive effort at Rutgers and UMDNJ to perform research at the interface of biology with the mathematical and physical sciences embodied in the recently-established BioMaPS Institute for Quantitative Biology. In an innovative strategy for education at Rutgers and UMDNJ, the new curriculum will include short courses on topics that are fundamental for understanding molecular, cellular, and structural biology and representative of significant ongoing contributions from leading quantitative biologists. Each course will provide the basics of the selected area of inquiry, advanced reviews of current contributions in these fields by leading scientists, and newly discovered biological observations in need of quantitative investigation. A course on a new topic will be offered every year for five years. The lectures and lecture materials will be posted on the web, and a descriptive monograph will be prepared for a special topics course for undergraduates. Thus, each graduate and post-doctoral student will, over the course of several years, become familiar with several areas of current research, and undergraduates will be exposed to problems in quantitative biology. Certain topics of research may be repeated with updated curricula in subsequent years. In addition to both the breadth and depth of the training in quantitative aspects of molecular and cellular biology, advantages of the new curriculum are: 1) the intense concentration on a theme each year will provide students with a deep understanding of a biological topic and 2) students with a more traditional biological background can become familiar with current research developments.