Current Students

All Master's students are responsible for composing a 3-4 page report, not to exceed 8,000 characters, that includes the following:

• Introduction of the Master's thesis project, emphasizing the key hypothesis to be tested
• Description of relevant background literature. This part should constitute one-third to one-half of the report (about 1.5 pages)
• Description and evaluation of procedures being used in the studies
• Presentation of any relevant results (where possible)
• Research direction

There should be two meetings in the first year of the MSc or direct-entry PhD program: one meeting held sometime within the first term, and the second meeting held within one month of completing the third term. These initial meetings should be followed by at least annual meetings. To provide the advisory committee sufficient time to review the report, the student should submit the report to committee members at least one week before the scheduled meeting. The student is responsible for setting up the committee meeting.

The report will be evaluated only by the student's advisory committee. No formal grade will be assigned to the report. The student will be expected to answer questions relevant to the report. A short summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal will be provided to the student by each committee member. These summaries and a copy of the report will be kept in the student's file. If the advisory committee believes the report to be unacceptable, then the student will be clearly informed that significant improvement would be necessary for the qualifying exam and the principal supervisor should guide the student in upgrading the report to an acceptable level.

This written report is not meant to replace the qualifying exam, but to aid the student in his/her preparation. The scope of the report is significantly less than the qualifying exam, but after appropriate updating and revising, much of the report could be included as part of the qualifying exam.

The above information is also included in the Graduate Student Handbook.

For detailed information on our graduate program please consult the following:

Department of Biochemistry's Graduate Student Handbook.

This handbook contains the following information:

• The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Requirements (roles and responsibilities of the program, supervisor, advisory committee, and student)
• Qualifying Exams
• Seminars
• Course Information
• Thesis Information
• First Year Reports

The Handbook also contains other contact information and useful links. If you have any questions regarding any Department/Faculty requirements, please contact the Graduate & Undergraduate Program Administrator.

Guidelines for the preparation and examination of MSc and PhD theses are provided by the The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

For the most up-to-date information, please visit Required Training at Human Resources.

Biochem 9511: Systems & Synthetic Biology

Biochem 9545: Bioinformatics I

Biochem 9546: Bioinformatics II

Biochem 9552: Quantitative Approaches in the Biomedical Sciences

Biochem 9703: Chemical Biology

Biochem 9501: Scientific Writing

Biochem 9516: Cancer Biology (Precision Oncology)

Biochem 9549: High-throughput Transcriptomics

Biochem 9551: Artificial Intelligence for Genome Data Science

Biochem 9552: Quantitative Approaches in the Biomedical Sciences

Schedule