The core curriculum will consist of 27 credit hours. This includes 3 semester hour credits each in the lecture courses Graduate Biochemistry I and II, Gene Structure and Function, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Introduction to Bioprocessing, Bioseparations and Current Topics in Biotechnology. Students will earn 3 credit hours by participating in two laboratory rotations lasting 6 weeks each in two selected faculty research laboratories. Students will earn 3 credit hours by working for 10 weeks with a mentor at a biotechnology company or business or a research laboratory that has specific relevance to the biotechnology science and engineering.

The laboratory rotations are designed to provide students with an opportunity to evaluate current research projects with different faculty and come to a decision about their dissertation project. Students who come to the program with a specific project and advisor in mind, can choose the laboratories through which they rotate in consultation with their major advisor and the thesis committee.

Students will be required to take a minimum of three seminar credits, one in each of the first two semesters, where they will hear presentations by invited speakers on various topics, and one at the end of the first summer where they will present a report to the faculty and students about their industrial rotation experience.

A qualifying examination, to be taken by each student at the end of the first summer of residence, will consist of three 3-hour exams in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Genetics and Bioprocessing/Bioseparations. Students will have to take all three exams during their first attempt. Students are only required to repeat the part of the exams that he/she did not pass. Students will have a maximum of two attempts to pass this qualifying examination.

Students who qualify for the Ph.D. program by passing this exam will then choose their advisor and a thesis committee during the Fall semester of Year II. The committee will meet for the first time with the student to review the initial research goals (Research Start Meeting). In consultation with this committee, the student will begin working on a research project which will subsequently lead to an NIH style proposal to be written in a semester's time. This written proposal will be submitted to the committee by the middle of Summer II. By the first semester of the third year the student will defend this proposal in a seminar, followed by questions from the committee members (Annual Research Appraisal (ARA I). Successful completion of the written and oral presentation of the thesis proposal will result in the student advancing to Ph.D. candidacy. During the fall semesters of the next two years, students will meet with their advisors and committee for a research appraisal (ARA II and ARA III). Following these annual evaluations, the student will begin writing the dissertation and plan to defend the thesis sometime during the fifth year of residence. The primary thesis advisor and the committee will have discretion to allow the students to defend the thesis earlier if the work is of high quality and sufficient progress has been made towards the goals stated in the research proposal.

The graduate school at UAH currently requires that students have a total of 48 credit hours in coursework plus a minimum of 18 thesis credit hours for a Ph.D. Once students have completed the core requirement of 27 credit hours of courses, they can satisfy the additional 21 credit hours by choosing courses from the areas of specialization under the direction of the advisor and the thesis committee.

The three principal areas of specialization will be Structural Biology, Biomolecular Sciences, and Bioprocess Engineering. The areas of specialization will be directed by faculty members experienced in these fields.

Each student that graduates from this program will have a Ph.D. degree in biotechnology with an emphasis in one of the three specialized area. The summary of the proposed program and a suggested path from admission to the program to a defense of the thesis is outlined in the following pages

Students can satisfy the additional requirement of 21 course credits by choosing courses tailored to the area of research by taking courses offered by other departments on the campus in consultation with the advisor or through Special Topics courses. Some of the specialized courses that will be offered by the faculty in the Biotechnology Ph.D. program are identified below. Some of these courses will be offered as Special Topics Courses subject to demand and student enrollment and therefore may have the same course number e.g. ChE 699 in Chemical and Materials Engineering.