Graduate Education in Basic Science

Pharmacology and Toxicology Program

The Pharmacology and Toxicology graduate program seeks to train highly qualified students for productive careers in research through the completion of a Ph.D. degree. In addition, the M.D./Ph.D. Program at Dartmouth Medical School provides research opportunities for students interested in the scientific basis of clinical medicine.

Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate Programs

The Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) at Dartmouth encompasses the areas of biotechnology, cell biology, computational biology, developmental biology, immunology, molecular pathogenesis and host-microbe interactions, neurobiology, regulation of gene expression, signal transduction and cellular metabolism, and structural biology. The MCB graduate program trains highly qualified students for productive careers in research and teaching through the completion of the Ph.D. degree in either Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Genetics, or Microbiology and Immunology. The MCB program is interdepartmental in its recruiting and administrative functions, providing comprehensive research and teaching opportunities for students and faculty within its member programs.

The Immunology Program

The Immunology Program at Dartmouth Medical School (DMS) is an interdepartmental program that trains both postdoctoral fellows and predoctoral students in cellular and molecular immunology. Most graduate students persuing Ph. D. degree in immunology train in labs in the umbrella Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) and receive their degree from the Microbiology and Immunology Department. Other immunology students matriculate through the Ph. D. programs of the Department of Physiology or the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, and Ph. D. degrees are granted through these departments for the students.

Molecular Pathogenesis Program

The primary goals of the Molecular Pathogenesis Program are first to recruit talented and highly-motivated graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and second to provide them with first-rate training which will prepare them for careers in academic research as competitive, independent investigators. The program faculty's research interests span a wide range of questions regarding host-microbe interactions and related topics in pathogenesis, which allows the entering trainee considerable breadth of choice of experimental systems, approaches and research topics.

Molecular, Cellular and Systems Physiology Program

Physiology is the study of how the body's major systems are organized and how they act and interact with one another to enable the individual to adapt and survive in the face of changing needs and resources.

Physiologists at Dartmouth seek not only to describe physiological processes, but also to understand them mechanistically at a physical, chemical or molecular biological level. Investigative strategies often include examining responses to natural or experimental challenges, including human diseases. The knowledge gained in this way both advances the understanding of normal biology and leads to medically useful interventions. The faculty of MCSP graduate program pursues this mission using techniques which include those of molecular biology and immunology, and range from gene manipulation to studies of the interactions of different tissues and organ systems in whole animals, including humans.

The goal of the MCSP graduate program is to prepare graduates of the program for careers as independent scientists in biomedical research. Programs leading to the Ph.D. and the M.D./Ph.D are available.

The Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine (PEMM)

The Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine (PEMM) at Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth College is a degree granting program that encompasses five broad disciplines ("themes"):

• Cancer Biology & Therapeutics
• Molecular Pharmacology, Toxicology & Experimental Therapeutics
• Neuroscience
• Systems Biology
• Vascular Biology

This new graduate program seeks to train the next generation of scientists and physician-scientists to engage in genomic, proteomic, cellular, and systems biology for the purpose of translating this knowledge into disease treatment and prevention.