Basic Science Departments
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Chair: Mark Bertness, PhD
Research and instruction in the Department is directed toward understanding biological systems at the individual, population, and community levels of organization utilizing both plant, animal, and microbial systems. Major research areas pursued by faculty and students include functional morphology, foraging ecology, the adaptive significance of animal behavior, sexual selection in plants and animals, insect mating behavior, plant population genetics, molecular population genetics and evolution, marine community ecology, theoretical population and community ecology, and ecosystem ecology.
Graduate study in ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University leads to the PhD degree. A core of faculty and postdoctoral researchers engaged in cutting edge research guides students. Students further benefit from the Department's academic collaborations across University and Alpert Medical School departments and programs. The Brown/Marine Biological Laboratory Joint Graduate Program offers students an opportunity to work with faculty at both Brown and the renowned MBL in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Faculty and students are also active prominently in the Environmental Change Initiative, a multidisciplinary center at Brown tackling the complex issues undergirding environmental change.
>View Ecology and Evolutionary Biology site
Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry
Chair: John Sedivy, PhD
The Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry is a basic science department within the Brown University Division of Biology and Medicine. Its core areas of scholarship are broad and encompass biochemistry, cell biology, developmental biology, and genetics. The department supports undergraduate, graduate, and medical education in these fields, offering a large variety of courses from introductory to highly specialized levels. The department currently houses 28 primary faculty whose research programs cover a wide array of biological questions, model systems, and methodological approaches. The biological phenomena under investigation span from embryonic and neuronal development, reproduction and genetics of behavior to neurodegeneration and aging. The biological mechanisms being addressed include DNA replication, recombination and transcription, RNA processing and transport, protein translation, protein folding and turnover, vesicular transport, and numerous aspects of molecular signaling. Model systems range from prokaryotic, through plant and several metazoan species to mammals including humans. Classical biochemical and genetic approaches are used alongside cutting edge technologies including genomics, proteomics, X-ray crystallography, and mouse transgenics. The department is also the centerpiece of an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental graduate program in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry leading to the PhD degree.
>View Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry site
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Chair: Christine Biron, PhD
Our department supports undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral education by providing an interdisciplinary structure for training programs. The department's overall mission is to maintain an active and integrated research program for studying the interactions between pathogenic microbes and their hosts that influence the outcome of infections. We foster collaborative studies within the department as well as with faculty in other departments, both on campus and hospital-based. We provide instruction and a nurturing environment for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students in the areas of microbiology and immunology. MMI's instruction includes lecture courses, seminar courses, and laboratory research (both undergraduate independent study and graduate thesis).
>View Molecular Microbiology and Immunology site
Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology
Chair: Wayne D. Bowen, PhD
Guided by a mission to apply insight gained from scientific inquiry to advance the treatment of illness and injury, faculty research interests within the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology (MPPB) are diverse and include molecular and structural pharmacology; the molecular and cellular basis for drug addiction; cellular and intracellular signaling in cancer and neurodegeneration; macromolecular structure; cellular, comparative, and organ systems physiology; biomaterials; organ replacement, tissue engineering, gene therapy, and regenerative medicine. Research objectives are translated into innovation by faculty with extensive experience in the biotechnology and biomedical device industry.
The Department's fourteen faculty members support graduate, medical, and postdoctoral education within an interdisciplinary framework of training programs in classical theory and newly emerging areas of biomedical sciences. Doctoral degree programs are offered in three programmatic tracks.
>View Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology and Biotechnology site
Neuroscience
Chair: Barry W. Connors , PhD
The mission of the Department of Neuroscience is to do excellent teaching and research on the basic functions and diseases of the nervous system. Areas of interest include neural plasticity, information processing, and neuronal and synaptic functions, particularly as they relate to development, sensory perception, motor behavior, and cognition. The twenty campus-based Neuroscience faculty train undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral, and medical students in molecular, cellular, developmental, systems, cognitive, and theoretical neuroscience. There are currently forty-two doctoral students in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and the innovative Brown-NIH Graduate Program Partnership, and 122 undergraduate students are enrolled in the neuroscience concentration. Members of the Department also participate in the MRI Research Facility, the Center for Vision Research, and several NIH and NIMH training grants for graduate and postdoctoral fellows studying neuroscience and vision sciences. The Department is also a cornerstone of Brown's Brain Science Program, a multidisciplinary consortium of about ninety faculty from eleven departments that promotes collaborative theoretical and experimental studies of the brain.
>View Neuroscience site
