Systems biology doctoral program funded

UCSF is the recipient of a US$1 million, 3-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to create a new and radical PhD program to train systems biologists. Graduates will be able to apply mathematics, physics, and engineering to biological questions, and effectively communicate their own ideas while welcoming the different ideas of others.

"The systems biologist is a new kind of scientist for a new kind of biology that predicts and engineers solutions, " says UCSF School of Pharmacy Dean Mary Anne Koda-Kimble, PharmD. "Like all PhD programs at UCSF, the new Integrative Program in Complex Biological Systems (ipCBS) is strictly interdisciplinary. Nonetheless, I am thrilled that almost half of the UCSF faculty members who designed or will be teaching in this new program are from the School of Pharmacy."

UCSF is one of 10 institutions in the United States, out of 132 applicants, to be awarded an HHMI grant to train new biomedical scientists to work across the non-traditional lines of the physical and computational sciences. • Full story: UCSF wins HHMI award for interdisciplinary graduate education. More information: HHMI Awards $10 Million for Interdisciplinary Graduate Education.