UConn Health’s Quantitative Cell Biology research grew into the area in Cell Analysis and Modeling. The concentration has recently updated its title to Systems Biology in order to better reflect the types of research it concentrates on. Faculty associated with this area explore complex biological systems using the tools of computational cell biology, optical imaging and other quantitative approaches to analyze processes in living cells. Our program is designed to train students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the cutting-edge research techniques that comprise the interdisciplinary research of modern cell biology. Students are provided with rigorous cross training in areas of mathematical, physical, and computational sciences and biology. Systems Biology students take courses, attend seminars and work on interdisciplinary research projects to broaden and strengthen their abilities to do quantitative cell biology research.
The Systems Biology area of concentration is based within the Richard D. Berlin Center for Cell Analysis and Modeling (CCAM) at UConn Health. Established in 1994, CCAM has emerged as a Center that promotes the application of physics, chemistry and computation to cell biology. The environment of CCAM is designed to promote interdisciplinary interactions and its cadre of physical scientists are supported and valued in a way that is unique for a medical school. CCAM is also the home of the Virtual Cell modeling and simulation software project (http://vcell.org)
The program is particularly strong in the following areas of research: