The Division of Biological Sciences offers a unique integration of world-class research, award-winning graduate and undergraduate training, and outstanding community outreach. Our research mission includes the acquisition of new knowledge through basic research, and coordinated translational research to improve human health, our food supply, and our environment. Graduate training programs emphasize the excitement of discovery and the development of individual creativity and critical reasoning skills, with graduate mentors who are experts at the frontiers of their field. Because science exposure in the pre-college years is critical to the development of both scientists and informed citizens, we also offer special outreach programs for secondary school science teachers, students and citizens in Missouri.
The division offers primarily PhD degrees. General areas of research emphasis within the division include evolutionary biology, ecology and behavior; genetic, cellular, molecular and developmental biology; neurobiology and behavior; and plant sciences. Within these general areas, students may devise more specific graduate programs in, for example, plant genetics, invertebrate chemical communication or neurophysiology.