Accelerated Master's Program (MCB-AMP)

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MCB Departmental Requirements for the AMP
UA students desiring to acquire an accelerated Master's degree from the Molecular and Cellular Biology department need to fulfill the following requirements.  This is in addition to the UA Graduate College requirements for admission.

Students from other departments than MCB are welcome to apply to the MCB Accelerated Master's program.  They should satisfy their departments' requirements for an undergraduate degree and the MCB requirements for the Masters degree.  It is their responsibility to take the prerequisite courses to be able to enroll in the required MCB graduate courses.

Admission Requirements

1. At least one year of undergraduate research must be completed by the time of admission to the AMP program.

Awarding Degree and Fees

1. Students need to establish a Master's thesis committee of three faculty (including the research mentor) to monitor their progress. At least two should be MCB tenure-track faculty.  The responsibilities of the committee are to approve the choice of courses, to monitor the progress, and to approve the thesis.
2. Students need to take MCB graduate level courses.  These could be taken during the first four years or during the fifth year.  Two semesters of MCB 595A (section 1) are required and students are expected to give a presentation in each one.  We recommend that the students sign up for one semester during their fourth year and one semester during their fifth year.  Section 2 of MCB 595A should be taken the last semester of the fifth year where students would present the results of their research.
   
   Required Courses

Course Number/Title	Credits	No. of Semesters
MCB 546 –Advanced Genetics*	4	1
MCB 568 - Nucleic Acids*	4	1
MCB 572 - Cell Regulation*	3	1
MCB 595A -001 - Journal Club	1	2
MCB 595A -002 - Seminar	1	2
MCB 910 – Thesis	3	2

*Substitute courses are allowed subject to the committee's approval.

Suggested Elective Courses**


Course Number/Title	Credits	No. of Semesters
BIOC 565 - Proteins and Enzymes	3	1
BIOC 585 - Biological Structures	4	1
BIOC 588 - Principles of Cellular … Neurobiology	4	1
MCB 553 - Functional and Evolutionary Genomics	4	1
MCB 696A - Lab Presentations and Discussion	1	2

**Other graduate level elective courses are allowed subject to the committee's approval.

3. Students need to have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 by the end of their fifth year to graduate.
4. Students are required to write a thesis analyzing the results of their research.  The thesis should be formatted as a typical manuscript or manuscripts written for submission to scientific journals.  Published paper(s) with the students as authors will be accepted subject to approval by the students' committees.
5. Students should have a final meeting with the committee to approve their completion of the requirements for the degree.