All biological sciences rest on two central principles – all organisms and their characteristics are the product of evolution, and all life processes have a physical and chemical basis. Simply put, at the most fundamental level, there is a shared molecular basis of life. Despite the astonishing diversity of living organisms, from bacteria living in deep ocean hydrothermal vents to cherry trees flowering in the spring to complex modern humans shaping the world around us, many features of all organisms at the cellular and molecular levels are fundamentally similar because of shared evolutionary history. Discoveries of fundamental molecular mechanisms in one species – a bacteria or fungus or fruit fly, for example – often apply to other distantly related organisms like humans. Solving many of the most perplexing and challenging biological, agricultural, medical, societal, and environmental problems in today’s world requires a broad and deep understanding of the molecular basis of life. The highly interdisciplinary field of molecular bioscience seeks to understand at the level of atoms and molecules how living things acquire energy and chemical nutrients from their environment, how they use that energy to fuel the basic biochemical reactions and cellular functions required for life, how they use molecular information encoded in their DNA to grow, survive, and reproduce, and how their metabolic and biochemical processes transform the environment in which we all live.

The broad goal of molecular bioscience, to understand the mechanisms of life processes at the physical, chemical, and cellular levels, requires students to integrate knowledge from several disciplines that traditionally are treated as separate realms of knowledge. Molecular bioscience is at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and physics, but most undergraduate programs require that students focus on one discipline at the exclusion of the other two. In contrast, the Molecular Bioscience major at DKU is designed to integrate fully the fields of biology, chemistry, and physics throughout the major’s course of study, so DKU students trained in molecular bioscience will be better prepared to understand and make fundamental advances on the tremendous challenges facing our current and future generations in human health, agriculture, biotechnology, and global environmental change.

Through the required interdisciplinary introductory courses including Biochemistry, Biophysics, Genetics and Evolution, and Biomedical Ethics, all molecular bioscience students will gain core foundational knowledge and skills that uniquely will enable them to pursue one of four more specialized tracks of courses that focus some of the most exciting fields of science today.

Students who choose the Cell and Molecular Biology track, for example, will learn of stunning new discoveries of how cells work at the molecular level, and how that knowledge is critical for advances in cancer biology and medicine, pharmacology, biochemistry, virology, immunology, developmental biology, and the Biotech industries.

The Genetics and Genomics track will provide students with deep insight into how the explosive fields of functional genomics, bioinformatics, and computational biology are revolutionizing our understanding of life. Students will learn how genomics is revealing the complex and highly orchestrated mechanisms that organisms use to regulate genes and genomes, how genomes evolve via population genomic processes, and how new methods like DNA editing promise to transform medicine, agriculture, and our understanding of basic biological processes.

The Biophysics track will allow students to apply principles of physics to biological systems at molecular, organismal, and ecological levels. These students will learn how such integrated applications of these principles are leading to the incredible breadth of advances biophysicists are making in bioelectronics, quantum biology, nanotechnology, structural biology, biomechanics, biochemistry, and cell and molecular biology.

Finally, students who choose the Biogeochemistry track will discover how the activities of biological systems and other chemical, physical, and geological processes drive the global or local cycles of chemicals like carbon and nitrogen, and ultimately lead to global environmental change. These students, with their interdisciplinary training in molecular bioscience with a focus on ecosystem science, will be uniquely prepared to solve existential challenges like human-mediated global climate change and environmental degradation.