Prospective Students

The members of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB) are broadly interested in how organisms, cells, molecules, and genomes develop and function. The faculty share technical approaches such as recombinant DNA, genetics, biochemistry, and specialized imaging. They also share a common intellectual approach that emphasizes mechanistic and experimental strategies to investigate a diverse set of biological problems using a variety of model systems including prokaryotes, yeast, Aplysia, Chlamydomonas, C. elegans, Drosophila, Arabidopsis, axolotl, zebrafish, and mammals.

The MCDB Department’s graduate training program is recognized for its excellence. In the most recent U.S. National Research Council (NRC) analysis, our program ranked among the top of Ph.D. programs in Cell and Developmental Biology. The full report is available at the National Academies Press Website.


Admissions and Recruitment

The Ph.D. program in the Molecular, Cellular and Development Biology Department begins with admission to the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Entering students have the option of applying to several tracks within the interdepartmental graduate program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) including:

Several special programs can be chosen to be paired with specific tracks including:

After being admitted to a Ph.D. program within the BBS, students choose 3-4 laboratories to perform sequential rotations throughout their first year.  First year students in the BBS also take courses specific to their chosen track as well as a course on the Responsible Conduct of Research.  Students that chose a member of the MCDB faculty as their thesis advisor will be a part of the multidiscipinary MCDB graduate program.