Graduate studies within any single scientific discipline are challenging endeavors on their own. But imagine combining graduate school-level training in physics and mathematics with advanced research in engineering and biology.
That's the challenge of a new graduate program at UC San Diego that's teaching Ph.D. students how to combine the power of physics and math-based reasoning with practical engineering skills and biology in an effort to unravel the fundamental principles of living systems—principles that will likely encompass concepts reaching well beyond those of traditional biology.
The goal of this ambitious program is to develop a new generation of scientists who are simultaneously fluent in biology, physics, mathematics and engineering. The program aims to train scientists who can not only develop instruments capable of quantifying the behaviors of living organisms but also develop and experimentally test their own theories based on these data. These young scientists are to be the foundation of an emerging discipline known as "quantitative biology"—or "qBio."
According to a recent National Academy of Sciences report, advances in quantitative biology are critically important in order for our nation to continue to make future progress in medicine, genetics and the life sciences.
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