Microbiology & Cell Biology Graduate Program

The Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology hosts premier laboratories that are catalyzing breakthroughs in infectious disease, cell biology, neuroscience and environmental microbiology. This is best demonstrated by the sustained success of our faculty in competing nationally for grant funding, publishing high-impact papers and providing cutting-edge training and mentorship for our graduate students.

Funding comes from a range of sources such as the NIH, USDA, NSF, DoE, NASA and Montana Agricultural Experimental Station (MAES), among others. In addition, faculty have demonstrated success in acquiring funding from private sources such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the W.M. Keck Foundation.

MCB currently has the largest annual departmental research expenditures at MSU. It is housed in state-of-the-art facilities with core laboratories for flow cytometry, cell biology, molecular and genomic sciences and anaerobic microbiology, as well as pathogen containment facilities for small (BSL-3) and large animal research (ABSL-2). Instrumentation suites house equipment for DNA sequencing, computational biology, flow cytometry and cell sorting, electrochemistry and confocal microscopy.

MSU and MCB are unique in our location in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, providing access to experience and study pristine ecosystems. This includes our proximity to Yellowstone National Park, home to the world’s largest concentration of hot springs and the extremophiles they support. This is one of the most exciting and underexplored ecosystems in the world, ripe with opportunities to discover new lifeforms and contribute to major biotechnological advances.

There are two mechanisms of acceptance to the MCB Ph.D. program: direct and rotation. Direct admits identify a mentor who agrees to support the student and no rotations are required. The rotation option is highly competitive, and students selected have the opportunity to rotate through three laboratories. Following these rotations, the student (with mentor approval) selects a laboratory in which to conduct their graduate research. For our M.S. degrees there is only one option, direct admittance to a laboratory. Please visit the MCB Program Application Information page for more details.