Overview | edu Technology| Course Schedule | What Students are Saying | Course Leadership
The Core Course, Mechanisms in Biomedical Sciences: From Genes to Disease (8 credits total) is a comprehensive overview of current knowledge in cellular, molecular, and structural biology. This course provides all of the background necessary for subsequent specialized studies in biomedical research in a concentrated program during the first 3.5 months of Fall Semester, comprising the ten Sections listed below, which are grouped into three Modules:
• Molecular Biology
• Genetics
• Proteins
• Ligand-Receptor Interactions and Enzyme Kinetics
• Energy transduction and Biochemical Integration
• Organelles, Membrane Organization, Cytoskeleton and Motility
• Protein Processing and Targeting, and Vesicle Trafficking
• Membrane Signaling
• Cell Signaling
• Development
The innovative format of the course is highly interactive, and includes lectures presenting creative, cutting-edge approaches to investigating fundamental, current 
biomedical questions, together with review of fundamental principles of molecular and cellular biology. Vertically-integrated topics that tie together the study of individual genes, proteins, cellular function and associated clinical disorders place an emphasis on the development and critical evaluation of scientific hypotheses and state-of-the-art techniques. Student conference groups meet twice a week to analyze in substantial depth an exemplary primary paper that is related to the course material, with the guidance of faculty mentors. Each week, there is also a research-oriented special topics seminar, complementing the daily lectures. Optional, supplemental review sessions strengthen background knowledge. Educators agree that this innovative core course is one of the most exciting new initiatives in graduate education in some time.
There is a comprehensive exam at the end of the course, after a period of less intensive integrative lectures that review aspects of material from the entire course. The comprehensive exam is a take-home essay format in which students choose from among several questions to answer. Exemplary performance on the comprehensive exam is used to adjust the final grades for all three Modules. Students complete the Core Curriculum by the beginning of December, enabling them to begin rotations and more advanced courses in early December.
Please feel free to contact any of our Core Course leadership with questions.