The fifty independent virology laboratories at Harvard offer a broad spectrum of research activities, including the molecular mechanisms of infection, latency and persistence, genetics and molecular cell biology of signal transduction, cell-cycle control, transcriptional regulation, RNA processing, translational regulation, protein processing, macromolecular assembly, protein structure, immune responses and immune evasion, pathogenesis of viral infection, development of viral expression vectors, and use of virus vectors in cell biology, developmental biology, and medicine. Applicants for graduate training in virology should have a firm background in biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. In their first and second years, students are advised by the Student Advisory Committee. This committee meets with the student at the beginning of each of the first three semesters to discuss courses and laboratory research rotations or other academic matters of concern to individual students. Students are expected to attain graduate-level competence in biochemistry, cell biology, molecular genetics, and animal virology.
Students frequently take additional course work in immunology and developmental biology.
First-year students also do research in laboratories of their choice. By the end of the third semester, most students will have completed three research rotations, selected a thesis laboratory, and begun work on the qualifying examination. This exam consists of a written research proposal followed by an oral examination. For the remainder of the graduate program, students are engaged in full-time thesis research. The virology research laboratories are located in or about the Harvard Medical School campus, at Harvard University Fairchild and Biological laboratories in Cambridge, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and at the New England Primate Research Center campuses.