About the department of Biochemistry

The Department of Biochemistry looks for graduate students who are creative and willing to take a chance in exploring and answering challenging questions.

To our Faculty, mentoring graduate students with the incentive to innovate, discover, and challenge tradition is considered the very best application of the resources of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Students in our Department present a seminar once a year, and they are encouraged to attend and present their data in national and/or international meetings.

Graduate students in the department currently receive a stipend of $22,000 a year. This stipend is for twelve months and allows for full-time graduate study. Satisfactory progress toward the Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. degree is the only requirement for yearly renewal of the stipend. The Department is primarily located on the 5 th and 7 th floors of the Basic Science Building, which is immediately adjacent to the Education Center/Library Building.

Currently, the Department of Biochemistry has over 150 employees, including Faculty, Post-doctoral Fellows, Research Specialists, Administrative Coordinators, Administrative and Laboratory Managers. This represents a significant growth in the Department which had a total of 118 employees in 2002. With respect to research funding, the annual total costs awarded to the Department of Biochemistry have increased by 243% since 2001 ($2,771,438 in 2001 compared to $9,535,916 in August 2005), representing the strongest Department research growth-rate in the College of Medicine during this period. This growth has resulted in a ranking of 27 th place in 2004 for NIH funding for Biochemistry Departments in the United States, compared to the 41 st place occupied in 2000. This success is attributed to a concerted team effort among Faculty, Post-doctoral fellows, students and administrative personnel to broaden our research program.