Modern research in the biological sciences is increasingly multidisciplinary, focused less on single genes and proteins, and more on the complex interactions of multiple genes, macromolecules, and processes within a living organism. To provide the ideas and tools underlying this trend, biologists are embracing the complex technologies and quantitative methods across a range of disciplines from computational tools to the physical sciences.

The Program in Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology, and Biophysics (CMDB) at Johns Hopkins cross-trains doctoral students in all of these areas.

CMDB graduate students participate in a core curriculum including molecular biology, genetics, genomics, cellular biology, developmental biology, biochemistry, and biophysics. Students continue to broaden their knowledge in these areas throughout their graduate training while they specialize in their own research areas. Through this cross-training, PhDs emerge from the CMDB program prepared to tackle complex problems in 21st-century biosciences.

The CMDB program includes faculty from Johns Hopkins University’s departments of Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biophysics, Chemistry, and Neuroscience.

Founded in 1876, the Johns Hopkins biology graduate program is the oldest in the country. People like Thomas Hunt Morgan, E. B. Wilson, Edwin Conklin, and Ross Harrison were part of the initial graduate classes when the program was first founded.