Doctor of Philosophy in Structural Biology

Admission

For more information, please refer to the Department Curriculum page.

Graduate Studies:

For more information, please refer to the Department Curriculum page.

The graduate program is intended to prepare students for careers as independent investigators in cell and molecular biology. The principal requirement of a Ph.D. degree is the completion of research constituting an original and significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge. It is a training in a major with connections to biophysics (e.g., physics, chemistry, or biology, with a quantitative background equivalent to that of an undergraduate physics or chemistry major at Stanford).
Opportunities for teaching are available during the first nine quarters at the discretion of the advising committee.
The student must prepare a dissertation proposal defining the research to be undertaken including methods of procedure. This proposal should be submitted by the end of summer quarter of the second year, and it must be approved by a committee of at least three members including the principal research adviser and at least one member from the Department of Structural Biology. The candidate must defend the dissertation proposal in an oral examination. The dissertation reading committee normally evolves from the dissertation proposal review committee.
The student must present a Ph.D. dissertation as the result of independent investigation and expressing a contribution to knowledge in the field of structural biology.
The student must pass the University oral examination, taken only after the student has substantially completed the research. The examination is preceded by a public seminar in which the research is presented by the candidate.

Current topics of research in the department lie in the areas of gene expression; theoretical, crystallographic, and genetic analysis of protein structure; and cell-cell interaction. See Stanford's School of Medicine web site for further information.

Department: Structural Biology