Graduate students commit to research despite early challenges

Imagine you are a student in a new graduate program when a pandemic hits and shuts down the research you have just begun.

That is what befell the first cohort of seven graduate students in the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) program, who began in the fall of 2018. Rather than focus on the challenges the pandemic brought them, students doubled down on their research, which exemplifies the kind of student for whom the program was originally developed.

“We’re supposed to contribute something back, in the spirit of Ut Prosim, That I May Serve, so we focused on our community and making a contribution to literature and research,” said Earl Gilbert, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience. “Do I think I have made a contribution to how people will think about the brain because of my work? Yes, I believe so, and that’s awesome.”

Elizabeth Shupe '23 was the first member of the cohort to graduate. She’s currently working as a patent officer for biotechnology and organic chemistry inventions in the U.S. Patent Office. Gilbert and the remaining cohort members will continue to graduate this spring.

A beneficial partnership

According to Silke Hauf, co-founder of the program and associate professor of biological sciences, the Molecular and Cellular Biology program aims to provide graduate students with a supportive community, the ability to collaborate with researchers in seven departments, professional development, and career guidance. It also provides a minimum yearly $28,000 stipend in addition to tuition costs and subsidized health benefits.

“Because you’re getting paid to do something you love, it is both an honor and a motivator,” said Beatriz Pinkston, a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience. “I better utilize my time wisely developing science that is going to benefit the community. I’m being invested in and I think that pushes me.”

Keeping it fresh

To ensure the program stays fresh and successful, there is a rotation of program directors. The current directors, Timothy Jarome, associate professor in animal sciences, and Shihoko Kojima, associate professor of biological sciences, brought with them some changes.

“We decided to change our interview process,” said Jarome, who is a faculty affiliate with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “We use feedback a lot in the program. The student population is going to keep changing over time, their interests are changing, and that’s part of the reason that we shift around the directors over time.”

Another change considered by the new leadership is expanding to 10 students per cohort instead of seven. The program already spans several departments, but Jarome and Kojima believe other departments would be receptive to working with their program. 

“We use similar tools,” said Kojima, who is an affiliated faculty with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. “We speak the same languages and we can communicate, even though the typical categorizations may look totally different. One person may be studying a brain, and then another may be studying a muscle.” 

The directors are purposeful in establishing and maintaining a close-knit community among the cohort's students by providing monthly social meetings, encouraging collaboration across disciplines, and yearly retreats. That emphasis on community benefits not only the students, but also the affiliated faculty. 

“I have collaborations now with virology faculty we have on campus on topics I would never have known before, but that is the point of MCB, the interdisciplinary aspect that brings these separate but actually related disciplines together,” Jarome said.

Cultivating a supportive community is an integral aspect of the program. Kojima believes it not only enables better collaboration within the lab environment, but it also fosters better relationships between the faculty and the students.

“I’ve always felt super supported in the program, and the directors have definitely developed it in such a way that they take feedback from us students, like what is working, what’s not working, Pinkston said. “And I think it’s been really nice to feel heard and to feel validated.” 

About the program

The Molecular and Cellular Biology Program includes 62 faculty members from seven departments and four colleges:

• Animal science
• Biochemistry
• Biological sciences
• Human nutrition, food, and exercise science
• Neuroscience
• Entomology

The current number of students in the program is 21, and each year, seven students are accepted from around the world. 

For the first semester, students rotate through three labs of their choosing for a six-week duration in each lab. Once students choose a lab, they are moved into the department of that lab and entered into the Ph.D. program of that department and officially part of the MCB program.

Students select from among the four broad categories for their research projects:

• Cell signaling and cancer
• Inflammation and immunity
• Microbiology and virology
• Neurobiology

Find more information about the Molecular and Cellular Biology graduate program online.