M.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics

The biochemistry and biophysics graduate program has a cutting-edge experimental focus on solving significant research questions on myriad molecular mechanisms underlying life and disease and creating marketable innovative technologies.

Our steady-state number of graduate students pursuing Masters of Science and Ph.D. degrees is about 30, with most in our Ph.D. program.

Oregon State University is a broadly-based public institution enrolling about 25,000 undergraduate students. It is one of only two U.S. universities holding Land, Sea, Sun and Space Grant status. Accordingly, the university has developed strong programs in the sciences, agriculture, oceanography and forestry. The main campus is located in Corvallis, a college-oriented city of about 60,000 people, in the lush Willamette Valley. Corvallis is a short drive from both the Oregon Coast and the snow-capped Cascade mountains.

The Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics is one-of-ten the academic departments in the College of Science. Biochemistry & Biophysics offers programs leading to the following degrees: a Masters of Science with a thesis or without a thesis (including a "4+1" Accelerated Master's Program) and a Ph.D. Biochemistry & Biophysics faculty also train graduate students enrolled in the related Molecular & Cellular Biology program. Graduate students are major contributors to the research output of the department.

We offer a broad range of research topics through the faculty within the department, those associated with the Linus Pauling Institute, and affiliate adjunct faculty from other departments throughout the OSU campus. Research in the department is supported by over $4 million annually from external grants. The department is well-equipped with research facilities that include confocal and laser dissection microscopy, flow cytometry, X-ray crystallography, NMR, mass spectrometry, in-house access to high-throughput DNA sequencing, analytical centrifugation, and computational resources, and is additionally supported by additional facilities and staff in the Environmental Health Sciences Center and the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing.

Research interests of the faculty in the graduate program include aging, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease), atherosclerosis, bioinformatics, biosensors, cancer biology, cell signaling, DNA and histone modifications, epigenetics, membrane protein biochemistry, micronutrients, mouse transgenics, oxidative stress, protein and nucleic acid structure and function, production of secondary metabolites, and transcriptional regulation by nuclear receptors.

All applicants will apply through the Oregon State University Graduate school, here. More information on the application process can be found on our Admission Information page.

We offer selected students accepted into the doctoral program financial support in the form of teaching and research assistantships. These graduate students receive a twelve-month stipend of $24,500, a full tuition waiver, and a medical insurance plan that also includes dental and vision coverage.

In addition, several graduate students in the department have been awarded fellowships from the University or funding agencies such as the American Heart Association (AHA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).