About the Program

Program Overview

The Sheila and David Fuente Graduate Program in Cancer Biology is a University-wide interdisciplinary training program that will involve faculty from multiple departments and multiple schools and colleges of the University of Miami. The objective of this program is to provide a unique multidisciplinary training environment for highly qualified individuals that will prepare them for independent research and teaching careers.

The scientific focus is cancer research with an emphasis on the biology of cancer and the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. The program emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach which encompasses concepts and state-of-the–art techniques of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, genomics, proteomics, structural biology, cell biology, and biostatistics and will integrate students into the extensive and rapidly expanding translational research programs at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and other basic science research programs around the University of Miami.

Students will interface with both basic scientists and clinical oncologists/researchers to develop their ability to design multidisciplinary interdependent research programs in which science problems are driven by unmet clinical needs. Program graduates will be exposed to ongoing efforts in clinical research programs including the development and implementation of diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic applications.

This interdisciplinary Sheila and David Fuente Graduate Program in Cancer Biology is built on an innovative Ph.D. curriculum to train future scientific leaders in cancer biology.

Program goals:

• To provide a multidisciplinary foundation in cancer biology that demonstrates the interrelationship of biological discovery and clinical application.
  
• To emphasize explicit training in scientific reasoning.
  
• To provide students with two-tier mentoring. The students will recieve guidance from both a research mentor and a physician mentor: the research mentor is the dissertation advisor, while the physician mentor will provide the student with a clinical perspective in cancer bology.