Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Graduate Program
Admission
Thank you for your interest in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology (CCB) Ph.D. program at UCSF. Our program is exceptionally strong in Physical Chemistry, Computational Biology, Macromolecular Structure, Synthetic Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. The program is a member of the Boyer Program in Biological Sciences (PIBS). This provides exceptional opportunities for interfacing the chemical expertise of CCB students with the biology-focused research efforts of PIBS faculty. The CCB graduate program provides an excellent environment for learning modern chemical principles and techniques to study significant problems at the interface of chemistry and biology.
We encourage students to apply who have a strong interest in obtaining a broad and rigorous training in modern chemistry that includes molecular thermodynamics, bioorganic chemistry, computational chemistry and structural biology. The study plan is flexible to provide intense involvement in laboratory research in a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative setting. The CCB program is distinctive in its orientation toward the study of molecules in living systems. It is further distinguished by providing integrated training in the sciences related to chemical biology: integrating both with respect to the levels of structure (atomic, molecular, cellular) and with respect to the traditional disciplines of chemistry and biology. The training objectives for students of the program are met through course work, laboratory rotations, activities of the program such as journal clubs and research presentations and through thesis research in a specific laboratory. The class size is intentionally kept small to maximize contact with faculty members. In addition to the CCB curriculum that is currently offered to our students, we will be offering a Global Health Sciences curriculum that is tailored for those students interested in working on developing drug targets for parasitic diseases.
The Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program at UCSF offers a unique opportunity for graduate training, and we look forward to receiving your application.
You may apply to only one graduate program at a time. It is therefore important to consider which program suits your interests and apply to only that program. The Graduate Division will discard applications for multiple programs, processing only the application that it receives first. The application fee is $70 for US citizens and Permanent Residents and $90 for foreign applicants.
Because the opportunity for admission is so limited, we urge that foreign applicants consider the following before going through the effort and expense of applying to our program. Fellowship support for students comes from federal training grants, institutional fellowships, or external fellowships that limit support to United States citizens and permanent residents. This means that we can not fully consider foreign applicants unless, in addition to having an outstanding academic record, they have carried out their undergraduate studies in North America or they have had a substantial research experience in a laboratory with a long publication record in international journals.
Online application will be available September 23, 2009.
The Application Process
Application DeadlineOur deadline for receipt of online applications is Tuesday, December 1, 2009. The deadline for all supporting documents is Tuesday, December 15, 2009. GRE scores must be reported by Tuesday, December 15, 2009. Please download the instructions here. Letters of recommendation are to be submitted online.
Admissions Requirements
The minimum requirement for application to the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program is a Bachelor’s Degree. Students with diverse backgrounds in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and chemical engineering are encouraged to apply. Generally, successful applicants have a grade point average of 3.2 or higher with experience of at least one summer in scientific research. Applicants are required to take the Graduate Record Examination and a subject test. We recommend that the subject test be in chemistry, although we will accept test scores from other subjects. GRE scores must be reported by our admission deadline of December 15; this requires that the exams be taken in the fall test administration. Please have results forwarded to UCSF institution code number R4840.
Financial Support
Students admitted to the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program are assured a stipend for the duration of their CCB graduate studies, and payment of their fees. The stipend level for 2009-10 is $27,000. Students are expected to become California residents after one year, and to complete their graduate work in five years of full-time study. CCB meets the financial needs (stipend, fees and tuition) of its graduate students through the NIH Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI) training grant traineeships, university fellowships, PIBS Boyer Fund traineeships, teaching fellowships, research assistantships, and external fellowships.
Fellowships
We encourage all students applying to our PhD programs to also apply for external predoctoral fellowships such as the NSF, the National Defense Science and Engineering fellowship, and Hertz while still an undergraduate.
For questions, please contact the Graduate Program at: ccb@picasso.ucsf.edu.