The University of Tennessee Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB) trains graduate students in the fundamentals of scientific research. The department provides an excellent graduate education with a highly diverse graduate population. The program offers: a) high-quality graduate coursework in the form of lectures, lab courses, and seminars; b) participation in high impact, fundamental research at the cutting edge of the molecular and cellular biological sciences; and c) diverse teaching opportunities with active mentoring to improve their teaching skills. The BCMB faculty is committed to fostering a strong mentoring environment for all of their students that will maximize their subsequent career opportunities in diverse career paths.

Research in BCMB covers scales from atomic to molecular to organismal and includes research on diverse experimental systems. The expertise of our faculty is varied and encompasses biochemistry, cell biology, biophysics, molecular genetics & biology, physiology and computational/mathematical biology. This diversity creates many opportunities for collaborations that span multiple disciplines.

Academic Standards

Petitioning for a Master’s Degree

Students who have passed the comprehensive examination in the PhD program and have completed at least 30 credit hours of approved course work for graduate credit, at least two-thirds of which must be at or above the 500-level, may petition the department for award of a master’s degree. The additional requirements for such a degree are:

• Preparation of a research manuscript suitable for submission for publication in a major scientific journal and oral defense of that manuscript before an examining committee of three faculty members appointed by the head of the department, at least two of whom shall be members of the department or
• Publication of at least one full-length paper in a major scientific journal as first author.