Laboratory Rotations. All students enter our PhD program without a formal commitment to a particular laboratory. They have the opportunity to rotate in, or try out, three different laboratories in their first year. Each rotation lasts for 6 weeks. The first begins in July after students arrive on campus and is organized in advance in consultation with the dean. The second occurs in January, and the third in March. Students may complete all three rotations prior to joining a lab, or they can decide to join a lab in February after the second rotation. Our rotations are offset from classes so that students can concentrate on their research when they are in lab, and then they can focus on coursework when they are in class.
Coursework. Our students take formal science classes only during their first year of graduate school. They take one “core” course all together. Through this course they learn how to read, understand, and discuss science, and they learn how to do cutting edge research. The course has 4 sections: Scientific Reasoning, Mechanistic Biology, Cancer Biology, and Entrepreneurship/First Year Development.
Scientific Reasoning prepares students to think about science deeply and dissect primary literature.
Mechanistic Biology teaches fundamental principles of molecular biology, how cells are constructed and maintained, and how groups of cells collaborate to achieve normal development. In this class a research paper is dissected every day with one of our GSK faculty members who is at the cutting edge of their research field.
Over 9 weeks, the classes will consider:
- Genome biology, gene expression, and proteins
- Cellular architecture: from the cytoskeleton to organelles
- Cell cycle control, cell division, and cell death
- Cell signaling
- Stem cells and pluripotency
- Tissue and organismal development
Cancer Biology teaches how to think about cancer as a disease and also as a biological problem. This course leverages the world-class research and clinical expertise at Memorial Sloan Kettering. The course considers both the biology of cancer and also clinical approaches to combatting this disease.
Topics are considered, including:
- Cancer as a disease
- Genetic and epigenetic mechanisms
- Computational biology and oncology
- Cancer signaling
- Cancer metabolism
- Metastasis
- Tumor modeling and heterogeneity
- Cancer types and microenvironments
- Therapeutic strategies
First Year Development prepares students to transition in their thesis lab and teaches foundational science communication skills. Entrepreneurship teaches the processes involved in developing a technology for the market, including understanding intellectual property; evaluating the market for a technology; building a basic financial model; establishing funding mechanisms; assessing regulatory issues; and developing a business plan.
Students also take additional short courses in programming and quantitative biology.