Molecular Biology and Genetics

Several groups in the Department of Biological Sciences study the structure and expression of genes. Many faculty also use genetics and molecular biology as primary tools to investigate a wide variety of biological processes, including intracellular trafficking of proteins, cell death, tissue morphogenesis, tumorigenesis, cell signaling, transcriptional network and ribosome assembly. Emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary approaches, including developing new techniques in microscopy, NMR, X-ray crystallography, genomics, proteomics and mass spectrometry. Carnegie Mellon groups meet regularly with other research groups in Pittsburgh who are interested in prokaryotic biology, RNA biology or yeast genetics.