The Department is a teaching and research unit of the College of Agriculture . The graduate program is expanding with both M.S. and Ph.D. candidates and will increase dramatically with four new faculty hired during the next three years. These programs provide training in the particular area of the student's interest. A stimulationg research envirionment enables graduate students to gain extensive laboratory experience, while the broad selection of courses offers the latest information in biochemical and microbial sciences. Members of the department faculty are also actively involved in teaching as well as research.
All faculty have external research support and enjoy national and international reputations.
With 16,000 square feet of modern research and support space, faculty laboratories are fully equipped for biotechnological, microbiological, biochemical, and molecular biology research. Twelve new faculty have been hired since l986, and eight of these twelve since 1989. The development of research programs by new faculty and active research programs of senior faculty can be seen in terms of both external grant support and numbers of refereed publications. The level of external support and numbers of refereed publications increased in FY93 compared with previous years. Funding from two NSF EPSCoR grants has enhanced departmental research programs and played a significant part in development of research in molecular biology and protein chemistry.