MCB By the Numbers

MCB trains some of the highest achieving graduate students in the world

  • Since 2000, 15 MCB students have received the Harold M. Weintraub Award, a national award that recognizes outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences.
  • Since 2000, 155 MCB students have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Berkeley graduate students receive more NSF Fellowships than any other university in the country.
  • MCB students publish their high impact research in top-tier journals.

MCB graduate students work directly with faculty who are leaders in their fields. Of the approximately 99 active faculty members with whom MCB students can train:

  • 18 are Investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  • 26 are members of the National Academy of Sciences
  • 29 have won Pew, Searle, or Burroughs Wellcome Fund Young Investigators Awards
  • 14 have won the NIH Director's Pioneer or Innovator Award
  • 5 have received MacArthur Genius fellowships
  • 3 have received the Nobel Prize

Research in the MCB graduate program is world class across many disciplines, which allows students to explore diverse research interests before joining their thesis labs.

  • Research topics include: Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Cell Biology, Computational Biology, Developmental Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Immunology, Infectious Disease, Microbiology, Neurobiology, Stem Cell Biology, Structural Biology, Synthetic Biology, and Systems Biology.
  • The latest National Research Council rankings rate each of MCB's scientific divisions among the top 3 doctoral programs in their fields when compared to all U.S. universities.

The MCB graduate program is collaborative, diverse, and flexible

  • Approximately 30-40 graduate students join our program each year, ensuring a mix of students with diverse backgrounds and interests.
  • Students can perform lab rotations with any faculty member in MCB or affiliated with MCB.
  • MCB students can perform research under the joint mentorship of 2 faculty members, choose from a variety of courses within MCB or other departments, and even organize their own courses.
  • MCB hosts seminar series in each major research area, including the Koshland seminar series, for which students select, invite, and host outside speakers

You get to live in Berkeley!

  • Berkeley is a thriving, urban community surrounded by parks and open space and is only 20 minutes from San Francisco.
  • In Berkeley you have easy access to mountains, beaches, and the wine country.
  • Living in Berkeley is generally more afforable than San Francisco and the Peninsular.
    The average rent for a 1 bedroom apartment is $2500
    The average rent (per person) an MCB student pays for a shared apartment or house is $1150