Program Information
The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics is a component of the University of Virginia, School of Medicine and offers a comprehensive personalized program of study that incorporates both didactic and practical training. The Department admits qualified students for work leading to the Doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. The goal is to instill a thorough knowledge of modern biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, and biophysics, while at the same time awakening the student’s imagination to the diverse and exciting research areas represented by our faculty.
The faculty of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics constitutes the Graduate Program Committee, which oversees all students in the Department. Students typically come to the department following entry through the Biomedical Sciences (BIMS) graduate program but there are other avenues of entry such as the M.D./Ph.D. program. When the student chooses a research mentor from the faculty after the first year, the mentor becomes the chairperson of a Research Committee which guides the student through the remainder of the didactic curriculum and the research project itself. The Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics faculty is dedicated to preparing its students for outstanding careers in academia and industry. A hallmark of the program is one-on-one faculty involvement in the form of individual tutoring, preparations for oral and written presentations, and in-depth and ongoing discussions of research tactics.
Requirements for Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
All BIMS students must complete a minimum of 72 hours of graduate credit. A minimum of 24 out of the 72 credit hours must be graded coursework, and no more than 48 of the 72 credit hours can be comprised of Non-Topical Research.
The backgrounds of students admitted to the program are diverse, and the program attempts to educate all students up to a level of basic understanding in several areas deemed fundamental to modern biochemistry and molecular genetics. In addition, it is hoped that students will become more expert in some area related to their research, thus gaining a measure of confidence. It is likely that most students would have had (or would make up remedially) calculus, physical chemistry, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, genetics, and several courses in biology. They will then be required to satisfy the following departmental requirements:
24 hours (12 credits each semester of first year)
- Overall average of B or better is required.
- No grades less than B- may count towards necessary credits.
- Students receiving a failing grade (C or lower) in course work will automatically be suspended from enrollment and ineligible for continued stipend.
- Immediately upon receiving a failing grade, a student may provide extenuating circumstances or other justification to the mentor.
- If the mentor concurs, the student and mentor may provide written justification requesting continued enrollment within 7 days of the end of the term to the BMG Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) for further consideration.
- A special dispensation permitting continued enrollment and/or stipend may be granted after further review by the DGS in conjunction with the BMG admissions committee. Remedial requirements will be stated in written form (hardcopy or electronic) within 10 days of receipt of student’s request.
Required Courses
Electives
Minimum of two additional BIMS modules or affiliated science courses (minimum of 4 credits total). School of Medicine guidelines require that these two modules must be graded (A to F and not S/U).
Journal Club
Journal Club (aka Biochemical Literature) and Colloquium (aka Seminar) – attendance is required following mentor selection and for the duration of the student enrollment in the BMG program.
Associated Courses:
Laboratory Rotations
Associated Courses:
Thesis
Qualifying Examination
The student will prepare a research proposal and defend it orally before a proposal committee formulated by student with the mentor’s guidance and approved by the BMG Director of Graduate Studies. This exam will be open to the faculty only. The student will be advanced to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree upon a satisfactory performance in this exam.
Function: To review the student’s ability to formulate a research problem and to design a research program aimed at elucidating the problem. A general questioning period will be included on subjects determined by the committee. Timing: Must be completed by the beginning (September) of the third academic year. Only special circumstances should modulate this deadline. The proposal is presented to the three-member proposal committee.
Format: The basic elements of a formal faculty research grant proposal should be present. These elements include: Background and Significance; Specific Aims; and Experimental Design and Methods. The format of the following granting agencies would be appropriate: NIH, NSF, ACS, etc. Unlike most faculty grant proposals, there is no requirement for preliminary results or supporting data from the student. The proposal must contain ideas/hypotheses that are new and untested.
Students will be evaluated and scored separately on:
- Written document defense (Pass, Conditional Pass, Fail).
- Oral defense (Pass, Conditional Pass, Fail).
- Only a pass on BOTH portions of the exam will advance the student to Ph.D Candidacy.
- A “conditional pass” requires the examining committee to craft “specific objectives” that the student must fulfill to advance to Candidacy. The student and mentor must acknowledge these conditions which are subject to review by the DGS. A re-examination of EITHER portion of the exam is a common outcome when the committee believes that they can aid the student in their scientific development.
- Students who fail either portion of the examination are considered to have failed the entire examination, will not be advanced to candidacy, will have their fiscal benefits terminated and will be dismissed from the program. Dismissal from the Ph.D. program is immediate, albeit the stipend may continue for a limited period to facilitate appropriate transfer of experimental protocols, reagents and data from the departing student to other scientists.
The DGS will review the outcome within 10 days of the exam, which may additionally be reviewed by the BMG admissions committee at the discretion of the DGS. Extenuating circumstances may be brought to the attention of the entire BMG faculty at the discretion of the DGS and BMG departmental chair.
Milestone: PHDCAND
Committee:
Academic Progress after Advancement to Candidacy
- Monitoring of academic progress after the advancement to candidacy exam is the purview of the Research (aka graduate/thesis) advisory committee, with input from the DGS. The BMG program requires that this committee meet at least once annually. However, the research advisory committee has the discretion to require more frequent meetings. At these meetings, the committee will hear from the student and his/her mentor about the progress towards completion of the PhD. Criteria for satisfactory academic progress may include:
- On time scheduling of graduate/thesis advisory committee meetings.
- Attendance at/participation in required programmatic activities e.g. seminar, Journal Club, Retreat etc.
- Adherence to programmatic policies.
- Research progress towards the goals established at prior committee meeting.
- It is the student’s responsibility to report all committee meetings and attendees to the DGS. If goals/milestones are established for the next meeting, then these should be included for review of the DGS. The goal of documentation is transparency and clear timelines for implementation. The committee may, at its discretion, require a more frequent scheduling of committee meetings. If they do, this becomes the expectation for the student, supplanting the basic programmatic requirement of annual meetings. This report(s) should occur within two weeks of the meeting.
- In the event that the committee expresses concern about the student’s progress, this will be conveyed orally to the student at the close of the meeting. A written committee report will be prepared and presented to the DGS, as well as the student. This report will include a clear statement that concerns were raised regarding the student’s progress and that this outcome places the student at risk for dismissal from the program due to failure to achieve satisfactory academic progress. The report will summarize the committee’s expectations as well as a timeline for their completion.
- If a determination is made that the student has not met the expectations established in prior committee reports, the committee may elect to dismiss the student from the program. If so, this outcome will be communicated orally to the student at the conclusion of the meeting. The committee chair will work with the DGS to prepare a final committee report documenting this outcome. This report will be provided to the student within two weeks of the committee meeting.
- BMG requires a minimum of three faculty with primary or secondary appointments in BMG for Advancement to Candidacy examinations and thesis advisory committees. A fourth faculty member who does not have an appointment in BMG is required for the dissertation examination per the requirements of the School of Medicine (below). Furthermore, committees are encouraged (but not required) to include the fourth member in advising and committee meetings well before creation and defense of the written dissertation.
Milestone: Students are expected to choose an advisor and dissertation project during the second semester of their first year. PHDDISSERT
Defense:
Completed dissertations must be submitted to the department/program for examination by the dissertation committee. This committee will consist of a minimum of four tenured or tenure-track members of the faculty. One member of the committee will serve as a representative of the School of Medicine to affirm that the student has been assessed fairly and with due rigor. This representative must hold a primary appointment outside of the student’s department/program. This representative may be drawn from the tenured or tenure-track faculty of other graduate schools at the University, but must hold a Ph.D. A Director of Graduate Studies may petition to permit a reader from outside the University who holds a Ph.D. to serve as one of the four core members of the committee by providing the Associate Dean for Graduate and Medical Scientist Programs or the Assistant Dean for Graduate Research and Training with the reader’s CV and a statement regarding the reader’s particular suitability for the committee. This external reader may not serve as the representative of the School of Medicine. Once these minimum requirements have been met, additional committee members from within the University or other institutions may be added.
- Per School of Medicine requirements, students must be enrolled during the semester of their dissertation defense and graduation. It is the student’s responsibility to meet all applicable deadlines. Prolongation of the dissertation defense without adequate demonstration of additional research progress may lead to a shift of financial responsibility for tuition and fees onto the student. Such a shift will be discussed with the student and mentor by the DGS at least 28 calendar days prior to implementation.
- If the examining committee’s determination is that the student has failed the dissertation defense, they will be dismissed from the BMG Ph.D. program. The DGS will generate a formal letter to notify the student within 10 business days.
Written documents for faculty review (qualifying exam, thesis, etc.) must be distributed 10 business days prior to the student’s oral presentation to the faculty. Faculty may opt for electronic documents and/or shorter time periods by unanimous consent.
Failure to Comply with Programmatic, School or University Policies:
Graduate students in the BMG program are expected to comply with all applicable University and School of Medicine policies, including but not limited to those governing responsible conduct of research (RCR), safety, student conduct, academics, and the Honor Code. Failure to comply with these policies will immediately place the student at risk of dismissal from the program. Violations will be considered on a case-by-case basis, with the adjudication process dependent on the nature of the violation and the University/School-based procedures in place to handle each.
Milestone: PHDDEFENSE
Summation of Thesis to UVA Library
Doctoral students must upload the final, approved version of the dissertation to the University Library’s digital repository, also known as LIBRA, by the same due dates as for the Final Exam form.
Information regarding the repository, the submission process and copyright law is available through the LIBRA web site. Please note the following:
- The title page of the dissertation should be formatted according to the approved template. Signatures of the dissertation committee members should appear only on the final examination form. These signatures should not appear on the title page of the document that is uploaded to LIBRA.
- Students are responsible for ensuring that they upload the final, approved version of their thesis. Documents submitted to LIBRA cannot be deleted or corrected.
- The thesis title submitted to the department in step three above will appear in the LIBRA upload interface. If the title listed in LIBRA does not match the final title of the thesis, the student must stop the upload process and inform his or her departmental graduate administrator of the correct title. The thesis title listed in SIS, LIBRA and the student’s transcript should be identical.
LIBRA will accept the thesis as a single PDF document up to 100MB. Students also have the option to upload supplemental files.
Formatting Requirements
There are no formatting requirements or restrictions; however, students should adhere to traditional physical standards if they wish to purchase bound copies from UVA Printing and Copying Services.
Milestone: LIBRA
Survey of Earned Doctorates
All students are required to complete the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates
Milestone: SURVEY
Requirements for Dual Degree Program
The Biochemistry Program accepts students in the Medical Science Training Program (dual degree MD and PhD students). Students in the MSTP are in an accelerated curriculum and generally complete their Graduate Requirements within 4 years.
Students enrolled in the MSTP will often use the coursework completed during the MD preclinical curriculum to receive transfer credit for course requirements. For example, MSTP students can petition the Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD degree-granting program with which the student affiliates to receive transfer credit for BIMS 6000 (Core Course in Integrative Biology). Decisions on these petitions will be made by the DGS in consultation with the MSTP Director and the student’s research advisor.
Beginning with the cohort of MSTPs matriculating into the MD program in summer of 2021, and based on the School of Medicine’s Policy on course credit equivalencies, students who are awarded transfer credits for the core course requirement will be awarded 10 topical credits, the equivalent graded credit hours of the Core Course in Integrative Biology.
For those MSTPs who take the core course, the pre-clerkship curriculum will be evaluated by the Director of Graduate Studies of their selected degree-granting program for other appropriate coursework equivalencies for which they may receive transfer credit (up to 10 credits in total).
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