Message from the Director

Chemistry is the natural language of biology and has proven a successful and fertile environment for driving many of the spectacular successes in the biomedical sciences of the last fifty years. With the sequencing of many genomes and the ability to manipulate and assay biological systems with ever improving dexterity, rich new scientific questions poised at the interface of biology and chemistry are constantly arising. Many of these problems increasingly require cross-disciplinary approaches with expertise in both chemistry and the biomedical sciences.

The areas of chemistry that will have important impact on the future of biomedical research span almost all of the traditional chemical disciplines including synthetic organic, inorganic, biophysical, bioorganic, analytical chemistry and chemical physics.

In order to train a future generation of scientists that will be adept at working at the interface of chemistry and biology, four institutions have joined together to create a new training environment that is meant to blend the cultures and approaches of these two traditionally distinct disciplines. The Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering Tri-Institutional Training Program in Chemical Biology comprises combined faculty from Cornell University (CU) in Ithaca, NY and the Weill Medical College of Cornell University (WMC), The Rockefeller University (RU), and the Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI), the research arm of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City - the latter group of three biomedical research and educational institutions are in close geographic proximity. The combination of faculty and resources from the four campuses offers students in the program a wide range of topics and research problems to pursue.

If you choose to come to our program you will receive training that melds the diverse scientific cultures and approaches of both chemistry and biomedical research and be exposed to a wide range of research problems. The program is now in its 5th year and is one of the 20 training programs nationwide for the Chemistry & Biology Interface funded by the National Institutes of Health.

If these possibilities appeal to you, please contact the Program Office to learn more about us or apply online.

Timothy A. Ryan, Ph.D.