Quantitative Biology: a Graduate Curriculum Linking the Physical and Biomedical S

描述(由申请人提供)：上个世纪下半叶产生了关于生命细胞和分子过程的惊人丰富的信息。这些数据的数量和质量正在生物医学科学中引入一种新的思维模式，这种思维模式严重依赖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，分析工具和实验方法不再是生命科学中的本土工具，而是从物理科学的研究中被采用。这个美丽的新世界需要一种新型的研究人员，这种人可以在工作台和工作站之间轻松地移动，既可以轻松地操作显微镜，也可以进行模拟操作，而且对他们来说，建立定量模型并通过设计同样定量的实验来对其进行测试是很自然的事情。布兰代斯大学的数量生物学(QB)项目汇集了来自四个科学系的六个不同的博士项目，以培养能够迎接这一跨学科挑战的学生。QB是布兰代斯的一个正式的跨部门研究生项目，刚刚结束了第二个完整的学年；该项目目前有21名注册学生。QB利用 Brandeis现有学科博士项目的优势通过将这些学生聚集在一起 专门课程中的课程，旨在利用多学科小组培训提供的学习机会。被录取攻读生物化学、生物物理学和结构生物学、化学、分子和细胞生物学、神经科学或物理学博士课程的学生，在成功完成学业后，将获得所选学科的博士学位，并附加定量生物学专业。这种方法为学生提供了现代学科衔接培训，同时为毕业生提供了在就业市场上被证明具有价值的博士证书，因为它属于公认的传统学科。学生通常在博士学习的第一年或第二年进入QB项目，并一直与QB保持联系，直到他们毕业。每个被选为培训助学金的学生将在他们学习的第二年和第三年得到支持。 相关性：定量生物学项目的目标是培养有能力将物理学和化学中的定量实验、计算和数学方法应用于生物医学研究中的重要问题的博士科学家。预计这些科学家的工作将通过推动基础研究向缺乏跨学科培训的科学家难以达到的方向发展，从而改善公共卫生。

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, the analytical tools and experimental methods are not home grown within the life sciences, but are adopted from research in the physical 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 four 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 second full academic year of operation; the program currently has 21 enrolled students. 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 & Structural Biology, Chemistry, Molecular & Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, or Physics Ph.D. programs and who choose the QB track will, upon successful completion, receive 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 will be supported during years 2 and 3 of their studies. RELEVANCE: The goal of the Quantitative Biology program is to train Ph.D. scientists who are well equipped to bring quantitative experimental, computational, and mathematical methods from Physics and Chemistry to bear on important problems in biomedical research. It is anticipated that the work of these scientists will lead to improvements in public health by advancing basic research in directions that are not readily accessible to scientists who lack interdisciplinary training.