Johns Hopkins University
Biochemistry
Baltimore, MD
Overview
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine was opened in 1893. The University proper was the first American institution to place primary emphasis on graduate study. As a result of this tradition, there is a high proportion of graduate students in all divisions of the University. Student involvement is intense and challenging.
Approximately 450 Ph.D. students are enrolled in the basic science departments of the School of Medicine. Several hundred medical students and public health students are also enrolled in the School of Medicine and the adjacent School of Public Health.
Graduates have gone on to positions as postdoctoral fellows (68 percent of graduates) and university professors. Some have gone into clinical service (8 percent), and some are now staff scientists at the NIH (3 percent) or in industry (7 percent).
The Location and Community
Baltimore is located on the Chesapeake Bay. The city and its environs have about 1.5 million people. Its museums, libraries, and conservatories are notable. In addition to a number of amateur, semiprofessional, and student cultural organizations, Baltimore has a first-class symphony orchestra, a repertory theater, and an opera company. Renovation of the waterfront and adjacent downtown areas has sparked a remarkable urban renaissance in the center city. Washington, a 1-hour drive to the south, offers numerous museums, cultural events, and restaurants.
Programs of Study and Degree Requirements
The Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB) Graduate Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine offers graduate training in virtually all aspects of the biological sciences. The BCMB Program serves as an umbrella program that builds close ties among participating departments, fostering a collaborative environment that encourages interdisciplinary research. The rich environment, rigorous preparation, and guidance by faculty members prepare BCMB students for successful careers as independent research scientists in biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, immunology, genetics, developmental biology, physiology, neuroscience, structural biology, and related biomedical sciences.
After completing one year of basic formal course work and rotating through three laboratories, students choose their thesis lab and begin their original research. The program leads to the Ph.D. degree.
Facilities & Resources
Member laboratories are housed in the basic science complex that consists of five interconnected buildings, as well as the Ross Research Building, the Broadway Research Building, and the Cancer Research Building. There are a wide range of state-of-the-art core facilities available to students. These include facilities for DNA synthesis and sequencing, peptide synthesis and sequencing, electron microscopy (including a field emission scanning EM), confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy, fluorescence-activated cell sorting, computer training, and transgenic mouse production. Hopkins is also equipped for NMR, ESR, and CD, high-resolution mass spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction.
Expenses and Aid
A full tuition scholarship is awarded to all students ($32,500 for the academic year).
Financial Aid:
All students admitted to the BCMB program receive a full tuition scholarship, financial support in the form of a stipend ($32,500 for the academic year), and individual medical and dental insurance.
Housing/Living Expenses:
BCMB students have a wide choice of affordable housing. In contrast to most coastal cities, Baltimore rental prices are modest. Many BCMB students live near the Hopkins Homewood campus and ride a free shuttle bus to the medical campus. Graduate student housing is also available on the medical campus in University-owned Reed Hall. Monthly rentals at Reed Hall range from $400-$450. Housing information and up-to-date listings of houses and apartments for rent in the Baltimore area can be obtained from the Housing Officer, Ms. Ann Snead, Housing and Student Life, Reed Hall 1131, 1620 McElderry Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21205 (telephone: 410-955-3905; e-mail: asnead@jhmi.edu). Off-campus apartment rentals average $1100 per month for 2 bedrooms.
How to Apply
Students are admitted in September. The bachelor's degree from a qualified college or university is required. Applicants are expected to have had thorough training in biology; physical, organic, and inorganic chemistry; calculus; and physics. While these requirements are not absolute, significant deficiencies may have to be remedied by course work, and they can affect the applicant's chances of admission. Applications should include scores on the General Test of the Graduate Record Examinations. Subject Tests in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and physics are optional. Applicants should specify the number code 5316 for reporting GRE scores. January 10, is the tentative deadline for the receipt of all application materials for a September start date. Students should check the BCMB Web site, as this deadline may change.
Who to Contact
BCMB Graduate Program
JHU School of Medicine
1830 East Monument Street, Suite 2-102
Baltimore, Maryland 21205
410-955-3506
E-mail: bcmb@bs.jhmi.edu
The Faculty
Biological Chemistry:
Peter C. Agre, Professor: aquaporin water channels.
Michael Caterina, Assistant Professor: molecular mechanisms of thermosensation and nociception.
Pierre A. Coulombe, Professor: development, differentiation, and homeostasis in complex epithelia.
Susan W. Craig, Professor: molecular and cellular biology of actin-associated cell junctions.
Paul T. Englund, Professor: biochemistry and molecular biology of parasites
Stephen J. Gould, Professor: molecular mechanisms of peroxisome biogenesis and the molecular basis of peroxisomal disorders.
Gerald Hart, Professor and Director: roles of cytoplasmic and nuclear glycosylation in transcription, oncogene function, and neurodegenerative disease and in diabetes.
M. Daniel Lane, Professor: hypothalmic control of adiposity; signals and genes that trigger adipose lineage commitment and differentiation.
Mollie Meffert, Assistant Professor: transcriptional regulation of neuronal function in health and disease.
Albert S. Mildvan, Professor: mechanisms of enzyme action; enzymes of DNA synthesis and hydrolysis; nuclear magnetic resonance and electron spin resonance.
Craig Montell, Professor: molecular genetics of G-protein-coupled signaling and Drosophila vision.
Denise Montell, Professor: molecular genetics of invasive cell behavior.
Akhilesh Pandey, Assistant Professor: signal transduction; databases and annotation; bioinformatics; proteomics and mass spectrometry.
Peter L. Pedersen, Professor: cell energetics: its molecular and chemical basis and relationaship to mitochondria and molecular medicine.
Joel Pomerantz, Assistant Professor: functional specificity and design of signal transduction pathways.
Daniel M. Raben, Associate Professor: mechanisms and regulation of growth factor signal transduction; role of cellular lipids; structure-function studies of phospholipases.
George H. Sack Jr., Professor: amyloid A genes and proteins-structure and physiology.
David Shortle, Professor: physical chemical analysis of protein folding; NMR of nonnative proteins; protein structure prediction.
Barbara Sollner-Webb, Professor: RNA editing; rRNA gene expression; specific sub-nuclear DNA localization.
Paul Watkins, Associate Professor: lipid metabolism, particularly peroxisomal fatty acid metabolism in normal and pathologic conditions.
Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry:
L. Mario Amzel, Professor: 3-D structure of proteins: immunoglobulins and other binding proteins; oxidations and phosphorylations.
Daniel Leahy, Associate Professor: protein structure and function; cell-surface proteins.
John Lorsch, Assistant Professor: mechanistic dissection of eukaryotic translation initiation.
Cynthia Wolberger, Professor: X-ray crystallography; role of protein-protein interactions in transcriptional regulation.
Cell Biology:
Deborah J. Andrew, Associate Professor: regulation and formation of the Drosophila salivary gland as a model for tissue morphogenesis.
Peter N. Devreotes, Professor and Director: genetic analysis of chemotoxis in eukaryotic cells.
Peter Espenshade, Assistant Professor: regulation of lipid homeostasis in eukaryotes.
Shannon Fisher, Assistant Professor: skeletal development and bone morphogenetic protein signaling in zebrafish.
Ann L. Hubbard, Professor: plasma membrane biogenesis and vesicle traffic in polarized cells.
Robert E. Jensen, Professor: mitochondrial biogenesis: protein import, mitochondrial division and fusion, mitochondrial structure; yeast molecular genetics.
Abraham Kupfer, Professor: mechanisms of T cell activation and intercellular communication in the immune system.
Carolyn E. Machamer, Associate Professor: intracellular protein trafficking; Golgi complex structure/function; intracellular virus assembly; apoptosis.
Erika Matunis, Assistant Professor: signals regulating stem cell self-renewal.
Susan Michaelis, Professor: yeast molecular genetics; signal transduction and mating; protein targeting and nonclassical protein export.
Douglas B. Murphy, Professor: cell biology of protein dynamics and organelle transport in neuronal cells.
Pere Puigserver, Assistant Professor: gene regulation of metabolic networks.
Douglas N. Robinson, Assistant Professor: cytokinesis: biochemically controlled mechanics.
Katherine L. Wilson, Associate Professor: nuclear envelope assembly and function; gene expression, Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy; microarrays.
Joy T. Yang, Assistant Professor: cell adhesion and cell migration in mouse development.
Molecular Biology and Genetics:
Jef D. Boeke, Professor: transposition mechanisms; reverse transcription in genome evolution; yeast molecular genetics.
Elizabeth Chen, Assistant Professor: signaling pathways that control cell-cell fusion; muscle development.
Janice E. Clements, Professor: molecular biology of lentiviruses; molecular basis for virus pathogenesis and CNS disease.
Jeffry L. Corden, Professor: eukaryotic transcription; gene regulation.
Brendan Cormack, Assistant Professor: interaction of pathogenic fungi with the mammalian host; yeast molecular genetics.
Nancy L. Craig, Professor: mechanism of DNA recombination; control of gene expression.
Stephen V. Desiderio, Professor: DNA rearrangements in immune cells; molecular mechanisms of lymphocyte development.
Andrew Feinberg, Professor: genomic imprinting in development and disease; genetics of childhood cancer.
Rachel Green, Assistant Professor: role of 23S rRNA in the mechanism of translation.
Carol W. Greider, Professor and Director: telomeres and telomerase in chromosome stability and cancer.
Se-Jin Lee, Professor: growth and differentiation factors in mammalian development.
Jeremy Nathans, Professor: molecular biology of vision.
Duojia Pan, Associate Professor: molecular genetics of tumor suppression genes and oncogenes.
Paula M. Pitha-Rowe, Professor: role of transcription factors, IRFs, in natural immunity and viral mimicry, HIV-1, and KSHV.
Randall Reed, Professor: neuronal development; molecular mechanism of olfaction.
Geraldine Seydoux, Associate Professor: control of somatic and germ cell fates in embryogenesis; C. elegans molecular genetics.
Robert Siliciano, Professor: viral reservoirs in HIV infection; AIDS vaccine development.
Mark J. Soloski, Professor: structure and function of the genes and gene products of the mammalian major histocompatability complex.
Forrest Spencer, Professor: chromosome stability and mitosis; genome cross-referencing.
Donald Zack, Professor: molecular studies of retinal photoreceptor and ganglion cells. Neuroscience:
Jay Baraban, Professor: molecular mechanisms of neuronal plasticity.
Dwight Bergles, Assistant Professor: synaptic physiology: glutamate transporters and glial involvement in neuronal signaling.
Seth Blackshaw, Assistant Professor: molecular basis of cell specification in vertebrate retina and hypothalamus.
Xinzhong Dong, Assistant Professor: molecular and genetic analysis of pain-sensing neurons.
David Ginty, Associate Professor: growth factor signal transduction in developing neurons.
Richard Huganir, Professor: molecular mechanisms in the regulation of synaptic plasticity.
Alex Kolodkin, Professor: molecular mechanisms of neuronal growth cone guidance.
Min Li, Associate Professor: molecular physiology; protein-protein interaction in signal and ion channel assembly.
David Linden, Professor: cellular substrates of memory.
Nicholas Marsh-Armstrong, Assistant Professor: transgenic studies of CNS developmental gene regulation.
Mark Molliver, Professor: neuroanatomy: organization of serotonergic projections, neurotoxicity of psychotropic drugs, neuronal degeneration.
Jonathan Pevsner, Assistant Professor: molecular mechanisms of vesicle trafficking in neurons.
Gabriele V. Ronnett, Professor: mechanisms of signal transduction in neuronal differentiation and olfaction.
Solomon Snyder, Professor: neurobiology of disease.
Shanthini Sockanathan: Assistant Professor: specification of spinal motor neurons.
Catherine Thompson, Associate Professor: thyroid hormone action in neural development.
Paul F. Worley, Professor: molecular mechanisms of neural plasiticty.
King-Wai Yau, Professor: visual and chemical sensory transduction. Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences:
Richard F. Ambinder, Professor: Epstein-Barr virus and malignancy.
J. Thomas August, Professor: immunogenetic therapy; targeting of antigens in vivo to MHC class II presentation to CD4®MDSU¯+ helper T-cells.
Philip A. Cole, Professor and Director: chemical approaches to the study of signal transduction, gene expression, and circadian rhythm.
Robert J. Cotter, Professor: development and applications of mass spectrometry to biological macromolecules.
Wade Gibson, Professor: herpesvirus proteins-synthesis, structure, and function during replication.
J. Marie Hardwick, Professor: viral and cellular genes that regulate apoptosis; viral pathogenesis; neurovirulence.
Gary S. Hayward, Professor: herpesvirus regulation of cellular factors.
S. Diane Hayward, Professor: molecular mechanisms of viral latency and tumorigenesis.
James E. K. Hildreth, Professor: adhesion molecules, lipid rafts, and the biology of human retroviruses.
Jun Liu, Professor: chemical biology and molecular biology; use of small molecules as probes to elucidate mechanisms of signal transduction; angiogenesis and cell proliferation.
Joel H. Shaper, Professor: molecular and cell biology of glycosyltransferases; egulation of B4 galactosyltransferases in somatic tissue and male germ cells during spermatogenesis; glycobiology.
Theresa Shapiro, Professor: molecular basis of antiparasitic chemotherapy.
Ronald Schnaar, Professor: molecular basis of cell-cell interactions in the nervous system; glycobiology.
James Stivers, Associate Professor: molecular mechanism and inhibition of enzymes involved in DNA and RNA metabolism.
Paul Talalay, Professor: molecular mechanisms of chemoprotection against carcinogens; enzymology of steroid hormones.
Jin Zhang, Assistant Professor: cell signaling; kinases and phosphatases; chemotaxis; live-cell imaging; fluorescent proteins and reporters; chemical biology.
Heng Zhu, Assistant Professor: signal transduction; protein network; host-pathogen interaction; protein ship approach to study proteomics.
Physiology:
William S. Agnew, Professor and Director: molecular mechanisms of electrically excitable membranes; biochemistry, molecular biology, and biophysics of voltage-gated, ligand-gated, and second-messenger-activated ion channels in the nervous and neuromuscular system.
John Gearhart, Professor: mammalian developmental genetics; experimental embryology; transgenesis; gene targeting.
William B. Guggino, Professor: molecular biology and cell physiology of ion channels and membrane carriers; cystic fibrosis.
Jan Hoh, Associate Professor: macromolecular biophysics; structure of biological membranes; atomic force microscopy.
Peter Maloney, Professor: membrane transport ATPases and carriers; reconstitution of membrane function; cystic fibrosis.
Rajini Rao, Associate Professor: ion homeostasis; molecular studies on new pumps and transporters.
Roger Reeves, Professor: developmental consequences of aneuploidy; comparative genetics; multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.
Laura Roman, Assistant Professor: the role of retinoids and retinoid-binding proteins in cell differentiation and zebrafish development.