The School of Biosciences and Biotechnology includes six curricula:

• Biochemistry and Biophysics
• Cell Biology
• Evolutionary Biology
• Biotechnologies
• Genetics and Molecular Biology of Development
• Neurobiology

The six curricula share a strong homogeneity of both scientific language and methodology, along with a long-standing tradition of collaboration and scientific interchange that characterizes the tutors. Common cultural areas are represented by the bases of the cellular and molecular biology and of the modern techniques of experimental analysis. A common physico-chemical and statistical and mathematical background is also present. Each curriculum will focus the student formation on specific and selected research fields.

Program Features

The rapid and continuous evolution of the area of life sciences has made the study of living organisms a very interdisciplinary field. This requires competences that range from the physical and chemical bases to a detailed knowledge of the functioning of the organisms at a cellular level. For these reasons, the PhD student must be formed in a very interdisciplinary environment, ideal to interact and share information and competences among students and tutors with different scientific backgrounds. In this sense, the subdivision of the School in curricula shall allow to everyone to retain its particular expertise while being permanently in contact with other scientific areas.

The final goal of the PhD School is the formation of researchers highly qualified, possessing the cultural and technical instruments for the interdisciplinary study of the structure and functions of the biological systems and of Biotechnologies. In particular, the Coursework will concentrate on the different degrees of complexity of the biological systems, from the molecular level to cells and organisms. School curricula reflect the scientific interests and competences of the four proposing Departments: the Department of Biology, of Biochemistry, of Experimental Biomedical Sciences and of Histology, Microbiology and Medical Biotechnologies. The research groups that refers to the graduate school supports a broad array of Shared Scientific Facilities and Cores designed to advance the research efforts of students, these have a long standing tradition in the fields of the molecular genetics, functional genomics, bioinformatics, animal and plant biology, signal transduction, study of protein systems, mitochondrial bioenergetics, programmed cell-death mechanisms, cellular microbiology, neurobiology and nerve-muscle interaction are present. Plants, animal and pharmaceutical biotechnologies.

An aspect that we consider relevant for the formation of the students is the integration, mediated by the tutors, with other activity present in the University. In particular, some of the members of the "Collegio Docente" (here Collegio Docente indicates all the persons that can act as supervisors of the students and that periodically do active teaching) belong also to other research infrastructures, like CRIBI (Centro di Ricerca Interdipartimentale per le Biotecnologie Innovative) and the VIMM (Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine). Some of the students, in fact, develop their research activity in one of these institutions.

At the end of the PhD program, the doctor is expected to be able to manage autonomously an innovative research project, thanks to the knowledge acquired and, at the same time, to be able, as a consequence of the inter-disciplinarity of its preparation, to recognize the potentialities of other experimental approaches required by the progression of its professional career.

Didactic activity

The School will be characterized both by common didactic activities and courses specific for each curriculum. Each curriculum will generally organize 1-2 courses every year, but each student will have the possibility to attend courses belonging to other curricula. In this way, each student will attend 3 courses during the PhD program (ideally, two during the first year and two during the second), having the possibility of choosing among 6-12 courses every year.

Journal club activities will be periodically organized by the research groups. In addition, seminars on specific subjects will be organized and they will add to the scientific seminars that periodically takes place at the Vallisneri building. At the end of each year, every student will present a brief summary of his/her research activity.