Ph.D. Degree Program

Course Requirements
The BICB program is designed to allow for maximum flexibility. You and your adviser will determine the course work you will need to take to gain competency in your specialty. All PhD students are required to complete 31 course credits and 24 doctoral thesis credits that include the following required BICB courses:

• BICB 8510 Computation and Biology (2 credits, two semesters)
• BICB 8930 Journal Club (1 credit, three semesters)
• BICB 8920 Colloquium (1 credit, three semesters)
• BICB 8401 Ethics (1 credit, one semester)
• BICB 8970 Entrepreneurship and Leadership (1 credit, one semester)
• BICB 8932 Proposal Writing Seminar (1 credit, one semester)

Ph.D. students are required to gain competency in Core Areas 1, 2, and 3 (total 9 credits) and at least one of Elective Areas 4-13 (to total at least 9 credits).

Core areas:

1. Biochemistry, genetics, molecular cell biology and physiology
2. Mathematics, biostatistics and statistics
3. Computer science, informatics, computational biology and system biology

Elective areas:

4. Genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, microbiome
5. Plant science, animal science, veterinary medicine
6. Biophysics, structural biology, chemical biology, protein engineering, spectroscopy
7. Computational chemistry, cheminformatics, medicinal chemistry and drug design
8. Databases, data analytics, data mining, artificial intelligence and machine learning
9. Data management, data modeling, algorithms and optimization
10. Big data analytics, distributed systems, parallel computing, cloud computing
11. Computer vision, imaging analysis, virtual reality, signal processing and neural networks
12. Clinical and translational sciences
13. Health informatics, electronic medical records, and natural language processing

This program requires a minimum GPA of 3.00 (on a 4.00 scale) for courses included on any official Ph.D. degree program form. Courses with grades of A, B, C (including C-), and S may be included in the official graduate degree plan, but grades of S are not calculated in the GPA. All Ph.D. Students are required to register for 24 thesis credits (BICB 8888); these registrations are not graded and therefore cannot be used to meet course credit requirements.

There is a limit of one 3-credit or less 4xxx level course counted in the total course credits. At least 2/3 of the total number of course credits included in any degree program of a Ph.D. graduate student must be taken A-F.

Graduate credits earned after the award of a baccalaureate degree from within or outside the University, from previous or concurrent graduate degrees, and/or those taken as a non-degree seeking or non-admitted student may be counted toward the graduate degree at the discretion of the BICB program and subject to college approval. Click here for more information regarding transferring courses from other programs.

The preliminary written examining committee for the preliminary written exam of a Ph.D. graduate student consists of three faculty members and will be chosen by the DGS. It will not include the advisor/co‐advisor.

The preliminary oral examining committee for the preliminary oral exam of a Ph.D. graduate student consists of at least four members, at least three are BICB graduate faculty from at least two different budgetary units, and, if the student has a Minor, one member must represent the student’s Minor. If the student does not have a Minor, the fourth member may be from the BICB graduate faculty. The advisor/co‐advisor will be members of the preliminary oral examining committee. The advisor or, if the student has co‐advisors, one of the co‐advisors will chair the committee.

The final oral examining committee for the defense of a Ph.D. thesis consists of at least four members, at least three are BICB graduate faculty from at least two different budgetary units, and, if the student has a Minor, one member must represent the student’s Minor. If the student does not have a Minor, the fourth member may be from the BICB graduate faculty. The advisor/co‐advisor will be members of the final oral examining committee but will not chair the committee. This committee may be different from the preliminary oral examining committee.

Preliminary Written Exam 

Ph.D. students will write a research proposal on their thesis research to satisfy the preliminary written exam. The exam will be reviewed by three members of the graduate faculty, at most two of the reviewers may come from the preliminary oral examining committee. An advisor or co‐advisor may not be a reviewer. Each reviewer must assign one of the following three grades: Pass, Conditional Pass, and Fail. The student fails the exam if at least two of the reviewers grade the exam as Fail. The student passes the exam if at least two reviewers grade the exam as Pass. In all other cases, the student conditionally passes the exam. 

CONDITIONAL PASS FOR THE PRELIMINARY WRITTEN EXAM: The student is asked to rewrite the proposal within six weeks. (See below for rules on rewriting the preliminary written exam.)

FAIL FOR THE PRELIMINARY WRITTEN EXAM: The DGS must call a meeting of the reviewers and the preliminary oral examining committee [including the advisor(s)] to determine by majority vote whether (i) the student should be asked to re‐write the proposal (see below for rules on rewriting the preliminary written exam), (ii) the student should be switched to the Master's program (Plan A or B), or (iii) the student should be terminated. If the student is allowed to re‐write the proposal, the procedure is identical to a conditional pass and the student shall be given six weeks to resubmit the rewritten proposal.

REWRITING THE PRELIMINARY WRITTEN EXAM: The reviewers are asked to review the rewritten proposal and to determine whether the rewritten proposal is satisfactory. (Different reviewers may be chosen for the review of the re‐written proposal but at most two of the reviewers may come from the preliminary oral examining committee.) If the reviewers unanimously recommend passing the student, the student passes. Otherwise, the DGS must call a meeting of the reviewers and the preliminary oral examining committee (including the advisor) to determine by majority vote whether (i) the student should be allowed to re‐write the proposal for a second time, or (ii) the student should be switched to the Master's program (Plan A or B), or (iii) the student should be terminated. If the student is allowed to re‐write the proposal for a second time, the student shall be given six weeks to resubmit the re‐written proposal.

The number of times a proposal can be re‐written is limited to two. If the reviewers do not agree to unanimously PASS the student after the student had a chance to rewrite the proposal twice, the DGS must call a meeting of the reviewers and the preliminary oral examining committee (including the advisor) to determine by majority vote whether the student should be switched to the Master's program (Plan A or B) or terminated.

When the DGS calls a meeting of the reviewers and the preliminary oral examining committee [including the advisor(s)], both the DGS and the advisor are eligible to vote. The Associate DGS may substitute for the DGS. Both the DGS and the Associate DGS may be present at the meeting but only one of the two has a vote.

Preliminary Oral Exam

After successful completion of the preliminary written exam, the student can take the preliminary oral exam. The student is responsible for initiating the assigning and updating of the preliminary oral examining committee. This is done electronically. Go to Assign/Update Preliminary Oral Examining Committee to start the form. Once a date for the preliminary oral exam is set and no later than one week prior the examination, the student must schedule the preliminary oral examination with the Graduate School online. Note that the degree program form must have been approved and you must hold active status at the time of the examination.

The preliminary oral exam consists of a pre-thesis seminar followed by an examination. The pre-thesis seminar is public and you must submit the title of your presentation at least one week prior to the exam to the program coordinator who will announce the presentation to the BICB faculty and students. The examination is not public.

Final Oral Exam

Before the student can take the final oral exam, each designated reviewer must certify that the dissertation is ready for defense. Reviewers must be given at least 14 days to review the thesis. A minimum of 2 major field reviewers and 1 outside reviewer are required. Advisor(s) must serve as reviewers. Obtain signatures on the Reviewers’ Report (contained in the Graduation Packet), and submit the Report prior to your defense.

Notify the Graduate School at least one week in advance of the date of your doctoral final exam. The doctoral final examination consists of a public defense of the dissertation followed by a closed session open only to the doctoral candidate and the doctoral final examination committee. To be recommended for the award of the doctoral degree, all committee members, or all committee members save one, must certify that the student passed the doctoral final oral examination. Students are not allowed to retake the final oral examination.

Submit your dissertation by the last business day of the anticipated month of graduation. Consult GSSP for formatting guidelines.

Based on need for industry experience and greater understanding of biological areas, all BICB Ph.D. graduate students are required to complete a minimum of 120 hours of lab rotations and/or industrial internships (collectively referred to as internships). Often, internships consist of observing experiments or processes in a lab that produces the data for the student's research. An internship may also include readings of experimentally focused journal articles or other sources to gain a better understanding of the data. Students may register for BICB 8960 if they wish to receive credit for the internship. Registration is not required, in particular if the internship is done during the summer or outside of the University of Minnesota.

A lab rotation in an academic or clinical lab that focus on the life or health sciences will allow students to become more familiar with experimental methods and thus will increase their understanding of data, including their acquisition and quality control. The purpose of an industrial internship is to give the student some industry experience. We do not require lab rotations or industrial internships to result in publications.

The BICB Graduate Program maintains a list of approved internship partners for industrial internships and lab rotations. The current list includes

• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Hormel Institute
• IBM
• Mayo Clinic
• National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP)

We will add other organizations to the list of approved organizations as opportunities arise, and potential organizations can be suggested by graduate students and faculty members. The steering committee will conduct a review to decide on whether to add an organization to the list of approved ones.

The BICB DGSs will work actively with IBM and Mayo Clinic to identify internship opportunities for BICB graduate students. In addition, graduate students may identify internship opportunities on their own. All graduate students need to send a project proposal for internships to the DGSs. Approval of a graduate student proposal to conduct an internship at a specific organization must be preceded by the steering committee’s approval of the organization. The project proposal must contain the following sections

1. Goals and objectives, including how the internship will advance the student’s career
2. Project plan, including estimated time that will be spent on the project
3. Planned outcomes
4. Mentoring plan, including a short CV of the mentor unless the mentor is either a member of the BICB program or has had prior BICB graduate students as interns within the previous five years.
5. Support Letters:
   1. For organizations other than the University of Minnesota, a letter or contract is required to ensure that the organization is willing to provide the industrial internship or lab rotation experience. In addition, the mentor must provide a letter that s/he is willing to mentor the student on the proposed project for the duration of the project.
   2. If an internship is conducted at the University of Minnesota, a letter from the faculty mentor who will oversee the project is required to indicate willingness to mentor the student on the proposed project.

The DGSs in consultation with the student’s advisor(s) will decide on whether to approve the proposal. The approval is to be conducted in a timely manner and shall not last more than two weeks after the program receives a proposal to conduct an internship at an approved organization. If an organization is not yet approved, the entire approval process, including approval of the organization, shall not take more than four weeks.

Internship mentors need not be members of the BICB graduate faculty. To monitor the quality of the internship, the graduate student and his/her advisor agree to meet regularly during the internship to review whether goals and objectives are being met.

Successful completion of the internship will be monitored by the DGS. A final report addressing proposal sections (1)‐(4) must be submitted by the graduate student to the DGS no later than four weeks after completion of the internship. This report will be reviewed by the internship mentor and the student’s advisor/co‐advisors, a recommendation of whether the goals and objectives of the internship were met must be submitted to the DGS by the internship mentor and the advisor/co‐advisors within four weeks after receipt of the report. The DGS will then file a report based on the recommendation that will be placed in the student’s file to indicate whether the student has completed the internship successfully. If the internship was not successfully completed, the internship mentor and the advisor/co‐advisor must explain why the internship was not successfully completed and what steps the student needs to take to complete the internship successfully.

Conflict resolution: In case of any conflicts, the graduate student and/or the student’s internship mentor should contact the DGS who will help resolve the conflict and will assist in connecting the student and/or internship mentor to appropriate offices within the University in case the conflict cannot be resolved with the help of the DGS.