Why do students choose to come to the University of Tennessee? There are a variety of reasons, including growing up with orange as their favorite color and spending Saturdays in the fall with 100,000 of their closest friends cheering their cherished Volunteers on to victory. Our students also come for a high quality academic experience, and the statistics on students who have entered UTK over the past several years attest to this. 

Why do students choose to major in Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology? Our majors are highly motivated students who boast a good track record of success after graduating, proceeding on to careers in biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sales, education and graduate training in biological sciences, medicine, pharmacy, and other fields. 

There also is another motivator... RESEARCH. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as a “Research 1” Institution. This categorization means that there search enterprise is a key element that defines UTK and shapes the quality educational experiences that are available to its students. The active pursuit of research by our faculty provides opportunities for students to gain hands-on scholarly experience as a part of their education at UTK. This is a feature that makes us proud in BCMB. 

Over the past five years, the BCMB Department has hosted over 600 undergraduate researchers in our laboratories! The individuals who take advantage of undergraduate research in BCMB have some of the best career trajectories. Our students often receive accolades from the University and beyond, and these speak to the high quality of our students. In this issue of our newsletter, we have an article on p. 8 and 9 focusing on our spring awards reception in 2010, which recognized our award-winning students and the outstanding participation they have in research activities sponsored by the Chancellor’s Honors Program and the Office of Research.

In the last academic year, our top graduate from BCMB was also named one of the top Natural Sciences graduates from the College of Arts and Sciences. This student, Kevin Kuo, was active in undergraduate research in BCMB and is now in his first year of dental school. Please see the article on Kevin on p. 6. 

Last year, UTK had two undergraduate Goldwater Scholarship winners, Michael Jungwirth and Nathan Stebbins. Both are pursuing undergraduate research in BCMB and graduate in the spring of 2011. One hopes to pursue an MD-PhD, and the other is determined to go to graduate school and become a college professor. He has been in an undergraduate research lab in the department since his sophomore year. One of our newest programs, an intensive summer Research Experience for Undergraduates, is also highlighted in this issue on p. 5. We have several departmental scholarships for BCMB undergraduate majors that are announced each spring. One is a research scholarship that pro-vides a stipend to fund an undergraduate research project in addition to tuition support. We value our research tradition in BCMB and consider this a hallmark of a healthy, successful university. We are proud to have such active undergraduate researchers.

 -Dr. Cynthia Peterson, BCMB Department Head