Courses offered by the Department of Cell Biology
Graduate students are expected to complete 24 credit-hours of course work during their first two years in residence. There is a rich selection of courses from which students can choose, based on their background and long-term career goals. Faculty of Cell Biology collaborate with faculty from other departments to teach these courses.
Three courses are required of all students:
• CMB 710-A- 01 - Intro to Experimental Design & Statistics 1 credit. First years only.
• Grant Writing for Biomedical Scientists (BIOTRAIN 720). Introduction to scientific grant writing for second-(or third-) year PhD students. This course contains lecture-based and active learning sessions. Content includes lectures combined Basic & Biomedical Sciences Courses with class discussions on grant agencies, format and structure of grant applications, concepts in peer review, best practices in articulating study design and data outcomes, rigor and reproducibility in a research plan, and crafting biological significance and training statements. Students write an NIH-style proposal and actively participate in topical study sections to receive oral and written critiques of their proposals and to provide constructive feedback of others' proposals. Open only to second-or third-year students in biomedical PhD programs.
•Statistics Course - Course choosing of the student.
Representative Cell Biology Course Offerings
• Stem Cell Biology (CELLBIO/MCB 730) Lecture/discussion format designed for first-year graduate students to learn the fundamentals of stem cell biology and to gain familiarity with current research in the field.
• Developmental Biology Colloquium (CELLBIO 830) This course covers a broad range of problems in developmental biology based on prominent developmental biologists who are invited to speak at Duke University during that particular semester and participate in discussions with the class.