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WELCOMEThe Chemistry/Biology Interface Training Program at Texas A&M University is an interdisciplinary graduate training program designed to provide training across the boundaries of Chemistry and Biology. The training faculty is drawn from the Departments of Chemistry, of Biochemistry & Biophysics, and of Medical Biochemistry & Genetics at Texas A&M University. The CBI program is exclusively for pre-doctoral graduate students in the Chemistry and Biology departments at Texas A&M University. Typically, entering students are admitted into the program and are formally trained for a period of 2 years. Informal training occurs during the entire period in which these students are enrolled in graduate school. In rare occasions, students already in these graduate programs are offered CBI fellowships. At present, NIH funds 4 students each semester. In addition, TAMU support is guaranteed only for the student's first year. Funding for their second year will depend on the level of funds available and the outcome of a formal first-year evaluation. Current CBI Faculty include: Professors David P. Barondeau, Deborah Bell-Pedersen, Kevin Burgess, Vincent Cassone, Brian Connell, Paul Cremer, Marcetta Darensbourg, Paul Fitzpatrick, Yi Qin Gao, Rene Garcia, Susan Golden, Christian Hilty, Jim Hu, Cheng Kao, Paul Lindahl, J.P. Pellois, Frank Raushel, Greg Reinhart, Daniel Romo, David Russell, Kathryn Ryan, James Sacchettini, Jim Scholtz, Ian Scott, Daniel Singleton, Guyla Vigh, and Coran Watanabe. To read more about their research please see the Faculty page.
What past students have to say about the CBI Training Program: Erica Lyon: In graduate school, my research related synthetic inorganic compounds to the active sites of hydrogenase, a metalloenzyme. At first I was intimidated by the project because my only exposure to Biology, prior to entering the CBI training program, was an Ecology class in 10th grade. By participating in the CBI program, I learned how all of the sciences overlap and was able to compensate for some of the deficiencies in my learning. I went from not even knowing the parts of a cell to having the confidence to take a post-doctoral position in Biochemistry. Now, I am teaching at a small liberal arts college and one of my main responsibilities is to develop the Biochemistry curriculum so that the students here can graduate with a B.S. degree in Biochemistry. Mackay Steffensen: My interests have always lied somewhere in-between Biology and Chemistry. This was one reason I pursued dual degrees in Biology and Chemistry during my undergraduate education. The CBI program saved me the pain of pursuing two doctoral degrees by providing the opportunity to take courses in both Chemistry and Biochemistry. Not only did it allow me to pursue a breadth of different subjects, the opportunity to rotate through several different laboratories for a short research stint proved invaluable. I was able to draw on these short immersions into various research groups to aid me in my own research. I believe the CBI experience played a key role in assisting me getting a NIH funded post-doctoral fellowship to the University of Oxford. |
