Overview
Founded in 1997 with a multimillion dollar start-up grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation, KGI was developed with, and continues to be informed by, world-class leadership and industry partnerships. As a member of the Claremont Colleges consortium (Claremont Graduate University and Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona, and Scripps Colleges), KGI offers its students the academic, social, and cultural resources usually available only at much larger institutions. KGI students also enjoy cross-registration privileges at the member colleges.

KGI's 59 M.B.S. students represent forty-five undergraduate schools from throughout the United States and abroad. Some students have work experience in the biosciences industry, and nearly all have college, medical, or industry research or internship experience. Approximately 42 percent are women, and 35 percent are international students. The Ph.D. program will enroll 5 to 7 students annually.

KGI both responds to and anticipates the unique and specific demands of bioscience industries, among them companies specializing in pharmaceuticals, bioinformatics, medical devices, bioinstrumentation, and bioengineering. The innovative M.B.S. instructional model, synthesizing knowledge of biology, chemistry, information technology, and business, ensures that graduates are qualified for a variety of industry positions, ranging from product and business development to regulatory affairs, and from sales and marketing to executive leadership.

The Community
Claremont, California, a town of 35,400 located at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, is 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and home to Keck Graduate Institute and the six other Claremont Colleges. The community is characterized by tree-lined streets, historic buildings, and the ambiance of a small college town. The Institute is ideally situated near the burgeoning bioscience centers of San Diego and Orange County.

Programs of study and degree requirements
Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI) is the only American graduate school dedicated exclusively to preparing students for leadership positions in the biosciences industry and to providing educational programs and research leading to the development of beneficial applications from emerging discoveries in the life sciences. KGI is a member of the highly regarded Claremont Colleges consortium.

The Master of Bioscience (M.B.S.) Program prepares a new generation of scientifically skilled and managerially competent leaders for the biosciences industry-managers who can translate groundbreaking discoveries in life sciences research into beneficial applications in key areas such as pharmaceuticals, bioinformatics, tissue engineering, medical diagnostics, and others. A two-year professional degree, the M.B.S. combines rigorous cross-disciplinary training in systems biology, computational biology, and bioengineering with management, ethics, and policy studies similar to those found in M.B.A. programs.

The Ph.D. in Applied Life Sciences Program is designed to bridge traditional scientific disciplines and translate fundamental discoveries into novel applications. Graduates will be qualified for independent research positions in a variety of industrial and educational environments. Although the Ph.D. option will eventually encompass systems biology, bioengineering, and computational biology with the additional requirement of a small number of business and bioethics courses, the program will be launched in phases, with the first phase focused on computational biology beginning fall 2004.

Facilities & Resources
KGI's 21-acre complex, located near the other Claremont Colleges, includes teaching, research, and development space in a parklike setting. The 78,000-square-foot facility houses classroom, project, conference, and administrative space and teaching and research laboratories. The laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation employed by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Core research facilities include a biological systems laboratory and centers for bioengineering fabrication and design, biocomputation, genomics, and proteomics. KGI's central computer facilities support high-performance computational and visualization functionality along with workstations and software to support genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics technologies. The Biosciences Business Ethics Center integrates the study and teaching of ethics into the business of bioscience by working with those who are directly involved at the intersection of science and global business practices. Students also have access to libraries, facilities, and services of the Claremont Colleges.

Expenses and Aid
Costs:Tuition for the academic year is $35,150. Costs of books and supplies are nominal. The Institute's generous financial aid program and paid summer industry internships help to offset educational costs.

Financial Aid: The Institute offers generous merit-based financial support to help defray expenses. Aid packages may include scholarships, fellowships, stipends, and loans. International students are eligible for financial aid, including loans. M.B.S. students receive compensation for summer industry internships.

Housing/Living Expenses: Students live in privately owned, off-campus housing and may use the Claremont Graduate University Housing Services to facilitate their search. There is a wide variety of accommodations in the area. Typically, the monthly cost of shared housing runs about $450 to $500 per person, plus utilities. One-bedroom accommodations usually run from $700 to $800 per month, and two bedrooms can run from $850 to $900.

How to Apply
Admission to KGI is very selective. Academic preparation, relevant experience, career aspirations, and leadership potential are given foremost consideration. Although an undergraduate major in the natural/life sciences, mathematics, engineering, premed, or information technology is likely to provide the most thorough academic preparation, it is not a prerequisite for admission. However, the demanding and broad reach of technical training at KGI requires a comparable level of requisite knowledge and skills. Scores from the GRE General Test or the MCAT are required. The TOEFL is required of international applicants whose native language is not English. Priority consideration is given to applications completed by mid-February. Applications received beyond that date are considered on a space-available basis.

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