All CMSB students take two core courses side by side: Foundations of Biomedical Science, which grounds them in the molecular, cellular, and systems-level biology and Bioinformatics, which equips them with the computational and quantitative methods to analyze modern biological data. These paired courses establish from day one that experimental and computational training emphasizes the dual fluency in generating data at the bench and to interrogate it with quantitative and in silico rigor. CMSB students choose among laboratories for their rotations with opportunities to engage in different experimental systems with the goal of combining bench experimentation with computational analysis.
This training is applied across a research landscape of exceptional breadth. CMSB faculty address the most pressing questions in biology and medicine: the molecular genetics of gene regulation, signal transduction, and DNA repair; developmental and reproductive biology from early embryonic patterning through organogenesis; stem cell biology and regenerative medicine; the integrated physiology of cells, organs, and whole animals; and the mechanisms underlying cancer, diabetes, neurodegeneration, renal disease, and inherited genetic disorders. Students engage this breadth with a correspondingly broad toolkit that includes imaging, genetics, biochemistry, structural biology, and physiological approaches alongside the "omics"-scale methods (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) and systems modeling that define contemporary biology.
The current handbook for CMSB curriculum is found here: CMSB Handbook