Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics (CBMG)

printable version

Note: Some courses in this program may require the use of animals. Please see the Statement on Animal Care and Use and the Policy Statement for Students and the Policy Statement for Students under Degree Requirements.

Abstract

The Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics administers the graduate program in Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics (CBMG). The recent reorganization of the College of Life Sciences has reconfigured several departments and their corresponding graduate programs on the basis on similar theoretical and experimental approaches used to investigate the major questions in biology, as opposed to the former departments centered on specific organisms. Over 30 faculty and 90 graduate students in the CBMG program share the common perspective that many biological questions are appropriately addressed at the levels of the molecule, gene, and cell. Thus, we anticipate that this research will help not only to elucidate the molecular, genetic, and cellular mechanisms of biological phenomena but also to provide crucial insights into the control mechanisms operating in physiological, developmental, and evolutionary processes.

Although the research interests of the CBMG faculty span the molecular and celular biosciences of viral, prokaryotic, and eukaryotic organisms, the CBMG graduate program is focused on 5 specializations: 1) Genetics and Genomics; 2) Microbiology, Microbial Pathogenesis, and Immunology; 3) Cell and Developmental Biology; 4) Virology; and 5) Plant Biology. Students interested in joining the department are encouraged to contact the CBMG Graduate Office for application materials. The Cell and Developmental Biology specialization emphasizes state-of-the-art research in cytoskeletal activity, membrane biology, secretion, cell division, and other fundamental cellular processes. The Genetics and Genomics specialization provides advanced training in new genetic, molecular, and bioinformatic techniques for investigating important problems in macromolecular processing, signal transduction, developmental biology, host-pathogen interactions, molecular evolution, and plant biology. The Microbiology, Microbial Pathogenesis, and Immunology specialization provides a wide range of research opportunities for studying the actions of microbial pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, and fungi, and the responses of various eukaryotic hosts. The Virology specialization concentrates on the molecular basis of virus structure, replication mechanisms, and pathogenesis. The Plant Biology specialization offers broad training in genetic, molecular, and cellular approaches for studying important questions in the signal transduction, cell biology, physiology, development, evolution, and pathogen interactions of plants.

The CBMG faculty have also developed numerous collaborations with such world-famous federal laboratories as the National Institutes of Health, USDA Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Smithsonian Institution Natural History Museum, and Food and Drug Administration Laboratories, as well as local private institutes such as The Institute for Genomic Research. Moreover, a significant number of prominent scientists from those laboratories have joined or are being recruitied to join the CBMG program. Therefore, graduate students have an incomparable wealth of potential research opportunities that extends from the College Park campus throughout the Washington, DC area.

The graduate programs in the department offer advanced education resulting in the M. S. and Ph. D. degrees. The Ph.D. degree, which involves independent and creative scholarly research resulting in an original dissertation, is typically completed within 4 to 6 years. Our Ph. D. graduates have readily obtained rewarding and challenging positions as research scientists, college professors, government administrators, or other careers requiring advanced skills at the Ph.D. level. The M. S. degree, which involves advanced technical training resulting in an original thesis, is often completed in 3 years. Our M. S. students are typically employed as research technicians in the biotech and biomedical industries or in government laboratories.

Admissions Information

The M.S. and Ph.D. programs in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics (CBMG) accept students for admission only for the Fall semester. The department does not give preference to either M.S. or Ph.D. applicants, in so far as we admit the students with the best records and the greatest potential for future success. Entering students are thus encouraged to select the M.S. or Ph.D. program based on their professional objectives. Typically, the appropriate professional objective for a M.S. student is a research technician position or an equivalent position, whereas the appropriate objective for a Ph.D. student is a research scientist, college professor, government administrator, or another position requiring advanced training at the Ph.D. level.

The minimum requirements for admission are a Bachelors degree earned from an accredited institution and an overall grade point average of at least 3.0. Successful applicants have usually obtained a broad course background and some research experience in the biological or physical sciences. A more specialized background in cell biology, molecular genetics, microbiology, virology, or plant biology, is desirable but not essential. However, the lack of background courses in the primary area of a student's research interests may lengthen the time required to earn a degree.

Prospective applicants should also be aware that admission into the CBMG graduate program is very competitive. For instance, the mean credentials of the new students entering in the Fall 2005 semester are: GPA of 3.53, average total GRE (Quantitative + Verbal) score of 1269, and average Analytical Writing score of 4.58 . Those applicants whose academic credentials fall significantly below these levels should have extensive research experience, strong recommendation letters, and/or compelling life experiences that compensate for their lower academic credentials.

All applicants must submit: 1) three letters of recommendation from professional and academic referees; 2) official college transcripts; 3) a statement of purpose for pursuing the degree, including goals and objectives for future work in the field; and 4) Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General scores. All international applicants must also submit their scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL); international applicants wishing to apply for teaching assistantships should also submit their scores from the Test of Spoken English (TSE).

Many CBMG faculty are also members of the graduate program in Molecular and Cell Biology (MOCB), which is a broad intercampus and interagency graduate program involving research faculty from the Colleges of Life Sciences and Agriculture on the College Park campus, the Centers for Agricultural Biotechnology and of Advanced Research in Biotechnology on the Maryland Biotechnology Institute campuses, and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD. Although the CBMG and MOCB have rather similar missions and core requirements, CBMG concentrates on graduate training in the five specializations described above, whereas MOCB tends to place more emphasis on biochemistry, biophysics, biotechnology, and oncology. Interested applicants should apply to the program more closely allied to their research interests.

Application Deadlines

	Fall	Spring
Domestic Applicants: U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents
Domestic Applicant Deadlines	Applications must be postmarked no later than January 11 (January 1 preferred) .	This program does not accept applications for this semester.
International Applicants: Applicants from Outside the U.S. or U.S. Citizens / Permanent Residents with Non-U.S. Credentials IMPORTANT:   International Applicants and U.S. Applicants with Non-U.S. Credentials must follow the domestic deadlines above if they are earlier than the deadlines listed below.
Applicants seeking admission under F (Student) or J (Exchange Visitor) visas	February 1 If Domestic Deadline is after Feb. 1	June 1 If Domestic Deadline is after Jun. 1
Applicants seeking admission under A, E, G, H, I, and L visas and immigrants	May 1 If Domestic Deadline is after May 1	October 1 If Domestic Deadline is after Jun. 1
U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents with foreign credentials	May 15 If Domestic Deadline is after May 15	October 31 If Domestic Deadline is after Oct.31

Application Requirements

1. GRE General
2. Official college transcripts
3. 3 Letters of Recommendation

Degree Requirements

General Requirements ()

The Graduate Director, with the assistance of the Graduate Program Committee, serves as the initial advisor for all entering CBMG students for their first year. For most students, the core requirements plus several advanced courses serve as the primary academic load during the first year of study. The core courses are: CBMG 688D and 688E, Cell Biology I and II, respectively (2 credits each), CBMG 688F and 688I, Genetics I and II, respectively (2 credits each), CBMG 688A/B, Research Experiences (5 credits), and CBMG 701 Teaching Microbiology (1 credit). The Cell Biology and Genetics courses are given in 7 week (half semester) modules so each set is completed in one semester. In addition to these core courses, each student is required to complete 3 additional two credit 7 week elective courses within the first two years. Currently these include courses in immunology, microbial pathogenesis, virology, plant developmental biology and physiology, general developmental biology, and bioinformatics. Students must attain a grade of "B" or better in the lecture courses, and a grade of "S" in MICB 688A/B and MICB 701. These grades are mandatory for continued enrollment in the graduate program. Additional courses offered by other departments may also be recommended by the students advisory committee. By the end of the second semester, the student must choose a research advisor from the CBMG faculty.

Every M. S. and Ph.D. student is expected to take a minimum of 9 credits of advanced courses in the chosen research specialization and 3 credits of graduate seminars in order to satisfy the requirements for advanced training. These requirements are typically completed in the next two semesters following the first year of graduate study. Before the end of the fourth semester, the adviser and the student should select the other faculty members who will serve as the student's Research Committee. The student's research advisor serves as the chairman of this committee, and it becomes the responsibility of the committee to guide the student through the remainder of the graduate program.

Master of Science (M.S.)

All M. S. students must take 6 credits of 799 Masters Thesis Research, in addition to the general credit requirement described above. The research for the M. S. degree must establish the student's ability to carry out research experiments addressing an important question in biology. By the end of the second year, it is expected that the M. S. student will write a brief research proposal summarizing the relevant literature, objectives, experimental methods, and significance of a research project that the student and the advisor believe is appropriate for a M. S. thesis. Once the committee approves a thesis proposal, it is expected that the M. S. student will then complete this research in time to defend the resulting M. S. thesis by the end of the third year. The student can request a routine extension for a fourth year from the Graduate Program Committee, but an extension for a fifth year will be granted only for very unusual circumstances.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

All Ph. D. students must take 12 credits of 899 Doctoral Dissertation Research, in addition to the general credit requirement described above. The Ph. D. student has two important meetings with the his/her research committee in the third year. For the Ph. D. proposal meeting, the student submits a research proposal summarizing the relevant literature, objectives, experimental methods, and significance of a research project that the student and the advisor believe is appropriate for a Ph. D. dissertation. This meeting, which is held by the end of the student's fifth semester, is chaired by the student's advisor and is attended by all members of the research committee.

The Admission to Candidacy Examination is held by the end of the student's sixth semester. As its starting point, this meeting uses the revised dissertation proposal submitted to the committee a minimum of two weeks before the meeting. In particular, the student is expected: 1) to exhibit a sophisticated understanding of the advanced knowledge necessary to conceptualize and to perform the critical experiments in the research proposal; 2) to defend the project outlined in the research proposal as having the potential to become appropriate and worthy of a high-quality Ph. D. dissertation; and 3) to demonstrate considerable ability for independent and creative thinking as it relates to the identification of important questions, the design of experimental hypotheses, and the testing of those hypotheses in other relevant research areas not addressed in the proposal. The student is expected to pass the Admission to Candidacy Examination before the end of the third year in order to maintain reasonable progress toward the Ph. D. degree.

It is expected that the student should be able to complete the research necessary for writing the Ph. D. dissertation within two to three years following the candidacy examination. The student is required to meet with the Research Committee on a annual basis. The research for the Ph. D. degree must establish the student's ability to perform independent and creative scholarly research that makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge about an important question in biology. The ability to do high-quality research is demonstrated by the submission and the defense of a Ph. D. dissertation.

Facilities and Special Resources

During the last several years, the CBMG faculty have spearheaded the upgrading of the research facilities throughout the department and college. We have created several state-of the-art shared instrumentation laboratories that enable our graduate students to have access to sophisticated instruments whose purchase and maintenance costs far exceed the budgets of individual investigators. Two such shared instrument laboratories center around biological imaging, for both electron and light microscopy, including brand-new a field-emission scanner, a new confocal microscope and an image reconstruction/deconvolution microscope. A newly established shared laboratory augments existing sequencing facilities on campus and serves the molecular biologists for the large-scale processing and sequencing of nucleic acids, with multiple robotic sequenators and real time PCR. Other core facilities in the department and elsewhere on campus provide instrumentation for fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), NMR, mass spectrometry, and microarray technology. Equipment and analytical instruments are available in both faculty and core laboratories for the maintenance of animal and plant tissue cultures, for the production of monoclonal antibodies, for the synthesis and micro-analysis of proteins, for large-scale fermentation and cultivation of microorganisms, and for computer assisted molecular modeling. Support staffing in shared instrumentation facilities is provided by the college, and maintenance costs have been subsidized by the college, thereby providing even occasional users with appropriate training and access, and simultaneously keeping instrument use costs low. This strategy provides exceptional opportunities for research and training, and enables graduate students to perform experiments with instrumentation that is at the leading edge of biological technology.

Financial Assistance

The CBMG program has been extraordinarily successful in its ability to provide continuous full financial support for our graduate students in the form of fellowships, teaching assistantships, and research assistantships, which offer 12-month salaries ranging from $19,500 to $23,000, plus 10 credits of tuition remission each semester and standard University health benefits for the entire year. All applicants for admission are automatically considered for financial support. The sources of graduate student support include: university funds, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and other federal granting agencies, as well as private foundations. Over 35% of the entering students receive substantial fellowship support each year. The default funding for the other entering students is teaching assistantships, which require a maximum of 15 to 20 hours of teaching-related duties per week. More senior students are almost always supported as research assistants on the research grants of their major advisors. Continous support is contigent on the student being able to make satisfactory progress toward his/her degree objective.

Contact Information

For further information including faculty research interests, see our WWW site at: http://www.life.umd.edu/CBMG/

Mrs. Sarah Biancardi, Graduate Secretary, CBMG Graduate Program
1123 Microbiology Building, University of Maryland, College Park
MD  20742
Telephone: (301)405-6991
Fax: (301)314-9921
cbmggrad@deans.umd.edu

http://www.life.umd.edu/CBMG/

Courses: CBMG PBIO MICB MOCB

Related Programs and Campus Units

Molecular and Cell Biology
Center for Agricultural Biotechnology
Biochemistry
Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics
Biology