Quantitative Biology

描述（由申请人提供）：上世纪下半叶产生了关于生命的细胞和分子过程的惊人的信息财富。这些数据的数量和质量正在引领生物医学科学的一种新的思维模式，这种思维模式严重依赖于数学和计算工具以及严格的定量实验方法。随着频率的增加，这些分析工具和实验方法不是在生命科学中自行开发的，而是从物理和数学科学的研究中采用的。这个美丽的新世界需要一种新型的研究人员，一种能够在实验台和工作站之间轻松移动的研究人员，一种既能自如地使用显微镜，又能自如地进行模拟的研究人员，一种能够自然而然地建立定量模型，并通过设计同样定量的实验来检验模型的研究人员。布兰迪斯大学的定量生物学（QB）项目汇集了来自五个科学系的六个不同的博士项目，以培养能够应对这一跨学科挑战的学生。QB是布兰迪斯大学的一个正式的跨部门研究生项目，刚刚完成了它的第七个完整学年的运营；该项目目前有50名在校生，是布兰代斯大学理科最大的研究生项目。QB充分利用布兰代斯现有学科博士项目的优势，将这些项目的学生聚集在一个专门的课程中，旨在利用多学科小组培训提供的学习机会。被生物化学与生物物理学、化学、计算机科学、分子与细胞生物学、神经科学或物理学博士研究生录取的学生，选择QB课程的学生，在成功完成学业后，将获得所选学科的博士学位，“并增加定量生物学的专业知识”。这种方法为学生提供了现代学科的桥梁训练，同时为毕业生提供了在就业市场上被证明有价值的博士学位，因为它是公认的传统学科。学生通常在博士学习的第一年或第二年进入QB项目，并在毕业前一直隶属于QB。每个被选为培训资助对象的学生，要么在第一年和第二年，要么在第二年和第三年得到支持，以实现QB培训与学生国内博士课程学习的最佳契合。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The second half of the last century produced a staggering wealth of information about the cellular and molecular processes of life. The quantity and quality of this data is ushering in a new mode of thinking in the biomedical sciences that relies heavily on mathematical and computational tools and on rigorous quantitative experimental methods. With increasing frequency, these analytical tools and experimental methods are not home grown within the life sciences, but are adopted from research in the physical and mathematical sciences. This brave new world requires a new kind of researcher, one who easily moves between the bench and the workstation, one who is equally at ease with running microscopes as with running simulations, and one for whom building quantitative models and testing them by designing equally quantitative experiments comes naturally. The Quantitative Biology (QB) Program at Brandeis University brings together six different Ph.D. programs from five science departments in order to train students who can rise to this interdisciplinary challenge. QB is an official interdepartmental graduate program at Brandeis that has just completed its seventh full academic year of operation; the program currently has 50 enrolled students and is the largest graduate program in the sciences at Brandeis. QB leverages the strengths of existing disciplinary Ph.D. programs at Brandeis by bringing together students from these programs in a specialized curriculum that is designed to take advantage of the learning opportunities afforded by training in multi-disciplinary groups. Students admitted to graduate study in the Biochemistry & Biophysics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Molecular & Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, or Physics Ph.D. programs who choose the QB track, receive upon successful completion a Ph.D. degree in their chosen discipline "with an additional specialization in Quantitative Biology". This approach provides the students with modern discipline-bridging training while providing the graduate with a Ph.D. credential that has proven value on the job market because it is in a recognized traditional discipline. Students typically enter the QB program in either the first or second years of their Ph.D. studies and remain affiliated with QB until they graduate. Each student selected for support by the training grant is supported either in years one and two, or two and three, so as to achieve the best fit between QB training and the course of study in the student's home Ph.D. program.