The following faculty members have expressed a particular interest in
working with the M.S. in Biotechnology degree program:
Professors: Ray Baughman (Chemistry), Lee Bulla (Molecular and Cell
Biology), Santosh D�Mello
(Molecular and Cell Biology), Rockford Draper (Molecular and Cell Biology)),Steven
Goodman (Molecular and Cell Biology), Don Gray (Molecular and Cell Biology), Ali
Hooshyar (Mathematics), Lynn Melton (Chemistry), Raimund Ober (Electrical
Engineering), Betty Pace (Molecular and Cell Biology), William Pervin (Electrical Engineering, Computer Science,
Mathematics),� Lawrence Reitzer (Molecular and Cell Biology),A. Dean Sherry
(Chemistry), Robert Serfling (Mathematics), Laksman Tamil (Electrical Engineering)
Associate Professors: Mark Anderson (SOM),Gregg Dieckmann
(Chemistry), Gail Breen (Molecular and Cell Biology), David Deeds (SOM), Matthew
Goeckner (Electrical Engineering), Warren Goux (Chemistry), Robert Kieschnick
(SOM), J B Lee (Electrical Engineering), Stephen Levene
(Molecular and Cell Biology), Paul Pantano
(Chemistry)
Assistant Professors: Jungmo Anh (Chemistry), Pankaj Choudhary (Mathematics), Ovidiu Daescu (Computer Science), Donovan Haines (Chemistry), Wenchuang Hu (Electrical
Engineering), Ying Liu (Computer Science), Nirup Menon (SOM), Issa Panahi (Electrical Engineering)
Senior Lecturers: George Barnes (Management), Andrew Cilia (Electrical
Engineering), Joseph Picken (SOM), Robert Robb (SOM),
Ricardo Saad (Electrical Engineering)
The M.S. degree in biotechnology is intended to prepare students for careers
in biotechnology and to assist currently employed professionals in enhancing
their career opportunities in the field of biotechnology.
Botechnology captures the exciting possibilities
made possible by the decoding of the human genome and by the advances in bioanalytical instrumentation, and the field is projected
for rapid growth. The M.S. in Biotechnology is designed so that students may
enter the program with a wide range of prior disciplinary backgrounds, prepare
for and take the four core courses, and, by choice from a wide range of
approved electives, tailor the remainder of the degree program to their career
opportunities. In this manner, students may develop areas of additional depth
in fields such as:
The M.S. in Biotechnology requires 36 hours of courses, typically twelve
courses of three semester hours each.�
Students may also elect to prepare and defend a thesis; more than 36
hours may be required for such a program.
The M.S. in Biotechnology is administered by the Department of Molecular and
Cell Biology. Students seeking further information or advisement should contact
the Molecular and Cell Biology Department office.
The
core consists of four courses �BIOL 5381 Genomics, BIOL 6373 Proteomics, and
BIOL 6384 Biotechnology Laboratory, plus a choice of one of the three courses
BIOL 5376 Applied Bioinformatics, Math 6341 Bioinformatics, or CS 6372
Biological Database Systems and Data Mining. [rm1] Students
enrolled in the Biotechnology M.S., Cell and Molecular Biology M.S. and/or
Ph.D. programs will have priority for enrollment in BIOL 6384.� Students who can demonstrate that they have
acquired the material and/or skills in a core course may petition the Committee
on Biotechnology for permission to substitute an approved elective course.
The program is open to all students who hold a bachelors degree, although
those with laboratory science, mathematics, computer science, or engineering
degrees are particularly encouraged to apply.�
In general, students will not be admitted to the
Every student admitted to the M.S. in Biotechnology program shall consult
with the program advisor(s) and develop a mutually agreed degree plan. All
requests for deviations from the degree program described in this catalog shall
be discussed first with a program advisor, who will forward the request to the
Committee on Biotechnology for decision.
There are no formal prerequisites for most of the core courses, and a
student, after obtaining consent of the program advisor, may attempt one or
more core courses. However, the level of the BIOL core courses is such that
most students will want to have mastered the material in the following courses:
General
Chemistry (two semesters, with lab)
Organic
Chemistry (two semesters, with lab)
BIO 2311 Introduction to Modern Biology I
(with workshop)
BIOL
3361 Biochemistry or BIOL 6352 Modern Biochemistry I
BIOL 3301
Classical and Molecular Genetics or BIOL 6V31 Molecular Genetics
The
four core courses should be taken in the following order:� BIOL 5376 Applied Bioinformatics, BIOL 5381
Genomics, BIOL 6373 Proteomics, BIOL 5384 Biotechnology Laboratory.� Consent of instructor is required for core
courses taken out of this sequence.
BIOL 5384 Biotechnology Laboratory is a skills based course. Students must show
that they have adequate laboratory skills �in order to enroll in BIOL 5384
Also available are four 1-SCH summer preparatory courses for
students who do not have the background in both biology and mathematics that is
required for success in the core courses.�
Students with a strong math background, who need access to modern
biology, should take BIOL 5V00 (Biology Preparation �
Students
who elect to prepare and defend a thesis must satisfy the MS thesis procedures
specified by the department of their thesis supervisor.
Electives
As a general rule, any course offered for M.S. and/or Ph.D. students by a
department within the Schools of Natural Science and Mathematics, or
Engineering and Computer Science or Management may be taken as an elective for
the Biotechnology M.S. program. Exceptions may occur, and students should
consult the program advisor for the current list of approved electives.
A joint program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, administered
through the Mathematical Sciences Department, is also available, and courses
offered within that program are also available as electives.
[rm1]This
is always an option at the advisors discretion. Statingf
it here suggests the courses are not regularly offerred, which so far is not
the case.