- General
- Research
- Education
- Admissions
M.D.-Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology
The Dartmouth M.D.-Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology is committed to the development and application of new, path-breaking computational tools to explore problems at the frontiers of biology and medicine. This unique program brings together scientists in computer science, mathematics, and engineering with those in biology and medicine. We emphasize the development of computational tools and technologies needed to analyze proteins, nucleic acids, and their interactions in complex biological systems. The Computational Biology program is equally strong in medical imaging, image processing, and scientific computation.
The Computational Biology program envisions that advances in many fields, such as genetics, immunology, and drug design will be facilitated by interdisciplinary interactions between the computational and biological sciences, and aims to provide new approaches for analyzing fundamental and challenging problems in modern biology and medicine.
Faculty
- Chris Bailey-Kellogg (Ph.D. Ohio State 1999) -- Experiment planning and data analysis for characterization and optimization of protein structure and function.
- Charles Brenner (Ph.D. Stanford 1993) -- Enzyme function and structure in tumor suppression, cell cycle and NAD+ biosynthesis.
- Yale E. Cohen (Ph.D. U.Penn. 1992) -- Computational neuroscience, audition, attention.
- R. L. (Scot) Drysdale III (Ph.D. Stanford 1979) -- Protein and RNA folding.
- Hany Farid (Ph.D. U.Penn. 1997) -- Computational and human vision, protein folding and design.
- Bob Gross (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins 1974) -- RNA folding, gene sequence evolution, database searching.
- Dean R. Madden (Ph.D. Harvard 1992)--Structure/function relationships in ion channels. Stereochemistry of protein-ligand interactions.
- Dan Rockmore (Ph.D. Harvard 1989) -- Scientific computation, medical imaging.
- Andrew J. Saykin (Psy.D. Hahnemann Medical College 1982) -- Neuropsychology, memory disorders, functional magnetic resonance imaging.
- John B. Weaver (Ph.D. U.Va. 1983) -- Medical imaging, image processing.
- Afra Zomorodian (Ph.D. UIUC 2001) -- Computational topology, computational structural biology.
The Dartmouth M.D.-Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology is closely affiliated with the Dartmouth Computer Science Department. Almost all our Computer Science faculty have current National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. Three received NSF Early Career awards, one received the NSF Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE), and one was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator. We have four Alfred P.Sloan Fellows, one MacArthur Fellow, and one Guggenheim Fellow. A group of Dartmouth computer scientists are funded by the National Institutes of Health under the auspices of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Protein Structure Initiative to develop novel computational methods to enable high-throughput structural and functional studies of proteins (see the press release).
Graduate Studies
 |
||
| Dartmouth Campus. Click here for a current SiteCam picture. |
||
The Dartmouth M.D.-Ph.D. Program allows students to select any Ph.D. degree-granting department for their doctoral work, including Computer Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry. Students specializing in Computational Biology receive training at the interface of computational science and biomedicine, to prepare them for the challenges of modern biology and medicine in the information age. Students will receive an M.D. from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Ph.D. from the Dartmouth Computer Science Department. Students may select dual mentors. For example, students with a strong background in the physical and computational sciences could have mentors in biology and computer science. Our world-class facilities are supported by an NSF research infrastructure grant. The Medical School, Computer Science Department, Biology Labs, and Chemistry Labs are in close proximity (across the street from one another) on the Dartmouth campus.
Students with diverse backgrounds, including computer science, biology, engineering, physics, chemistry, and biochemistry are encouraged to apply.
Students in the M.D./Ph.D. program are granted a tuition waiver, and are provided a full stipend during both the M.D. and Ph.D. years. Details on the admissions process for the M.D./Ph.D. Program are available here.
The Dartmouth Computer Science Department offers a Ph.D.-only Computational Biology program as well. In this program, students take courses and conduct research in computational biology; after a thesis is written and defended, they receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Application forms are available here. Since admission to the the Dartmouth M.D.-Ph.D. program is very competitive, applicants are encouraged to submit two separate applications: one to the M.D.-Ph.D. program, and one to the Ph.D.-only program.
To obtain additional information on our graduate program, please contact:
Graduate Studies Coordinator, M.D.-Ph.D.
Computational Biology Program
6211 Sudikoff Laboratory
Dartmouth Department of Computer Science
Hanover, NH 03755-3510