Department Overview

The Department of Cell & Developmental Biology in the School of Medicine has two missions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: research and teaching.

The departmental research mission charges the faculty to establish and maintain independently funded research programs in the biomedical sciences in their laboratories. A major aspect of this research mission is the training of graduate students in cutting-edge approaches to the study of outstanding problems in modern cell biology. Such approaches include sophisticated fluorescence and electron microscopy, molecular genetics, genomics and proteomics, biochemistry, mouse genetics, and others. It is a primary goal of the Department to train our graduate students so that they become successful, and productive members of the scientific community.

The departmental teaching mission has two distinct components. The first provides a forum for graduate students to learn current concepts in modern cell and developmental biology, and to develop the skills necessary to formulate and analyze sophisticated strategies for analysis of contemporary problems in cell and developmental biology. The second involves the instruction of professional students (e.g. medical and dental students) in the basic sciences, specifically in Cell Biology, Histology, Developmental Biology and Anatomy.

Students interested in conducting their PhD graduate study in the Cell & Developmental Biology Department should apply via the new Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP) which can be accessed here.