Synthetic Biology?

[sanfonts]

Hi there:

I'm a current undergraduate international student: I expec to obtain my B.S. in Biotechnology Engineering in May 2016. Currently interested in pursuing a M.Sc. degree in the States in something related with Synthetic Biology/Genetic Engineering.

I have two questions I and was hoping someone here could help me clear them:

1) Which are the best universities for Synthetic Biology/Genetic Engineering?! I have been frantically looking for programs related to these disciplines, but so far I've found only a handful of programs that are either (i) PhD programs along the lines of Chemical Biology (Harvard, Rice), (ii) MSc programs related to "Biomedical" engineering, more along the lines of new medical devices/drug delivery/tissue engineering (Johns Hopkins, Stanford Bioengineering)

2) These are my stats:

International student

 GRE V+Q = 162 (90%) + 163 (86%)

 GPA = 3.96

 Two Fellowships (Academic Excellence and International Mobility at my homeschool)

Part of the 2014 Stanford International Honors Program

Extensive research experience during my undergraduate studies, although not specifically related to Genetic Engineering until the very last year...
 

If I don't find any good choices for the programs I'm looking, I'm thinking of going for a PhD in chemical biology or biological engineering, applying to MIT BE, Harvard Chemical Biology, Stanford Chemical Biology. Do you think I could stand a chance in these top-tier programs?

Thank you very much!

 

[FLAGtagSwag]

Besides your standard top tier institutions (Stanford, MIT, etc.) I don't think another university has emerged as a synthetic bio "powerhouse". The field is still relatively young and I think only recently has been moving into these chemical biology/bioengineering programs. I wish there was a synthetic biology degree though, that would be baller.

Your stats are reasonable for these programs if you have a good SOP/letters. I would throw in Berkeley as well because of LBNL, Doudna, and other emerging PIs. There's supposed to be some sort of CRISPR oriented institute being constructed in the area that is likely to be affiliated with Berkeley. Check out biochemistry/molecular biology programs too like UCSF TETRAD (Lim, Gartner), and UCLA (Kosuri, Yeates). Also, Scripps institute in San Diego does super rad synth bio stuff like custom tRNAs and novel nucleic acids. 

Hope this helps friend

[SynBioGuy]

Good to see other people interested in SynBio. 

• Here is a somewhat outdated list of synthetic biologists in the US: http://syntheticbiology.org/Labs.html
• I think only Rice has a graduate program that specifically mentions synthetic biology in the program name
• For other schools, professors working on synthetic biology are in bioengineering, biomedical science, chemical engineering departments. Usually, synbio professors represent multiple departments. 
• As FLAGtagSwag has mentioned, if you are interested definitely think about applying to UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco.
• I think Boston University has good reputation in synthetic biology (but James Collins left BU to MIT, so this might change)   

 

 

Edited December 8, 2015 by SynBioGuy

[SynBioGuy]

For people interested in synthetic biology, I updated the list that I mentioned above. 

 

Because http://syntheticbiology.org/Labs.html  list was somewhat outdated, I made a new list. I probably did not include every synthetic biologists. Leave me a message if you think I missed anyone. I will add them in. The number inside the parenthesis is the Google Scholar h-index for your information.  

Boston University

• Densmore Lab (18)
• Khalil Lab (13) 
• Wong Lab (9)

Caltech

• Arnold Lab (101)

Cornell 

• John March (n/a)

Georgia Tech

• Gaucher Lab (24)

Harvard

• Silver Lab (90) 
• Church Lab (118) 

MIT

• Lu Lab (n/a)
• Prather Lab (n/a)
• Voigt Lab (n/a) 
• Weiss Lab (n/a) 
• Collins Lab (97)

Northwestern University

• Jewett Lab (22)
• Tyo Lab (18)

Penn State

• Salis Lab (14)

Princeton

• Jose L. Avalos (n/a)

Rice University

• Tabor Lab (11)

Stanford University

• Endy Lab (n/a)
• Smolke Lab (n/a)

UC Berkeley

• Anderson Lab (n/a)
• Dueber Lab (15)
• Keasling Lab (78)
• Adam Arkin (69)

UC Irvine

• Liu Lab  (n/a)

UC Los Angeles 

• James Liao (70)
• Yvonne Chen (n/a)

UC San Francisco

• Lim Lab (n/a) 

UI Urbana Champaign

• Huimin Zhao (41)

Virginia Tech

• Peccoud's Lab (21)

Washington University is St. Louis 

• Tae Seok Moon (n/a)
• Fuzhonng Zhang (n/a)
• Yinjie Tang (n/a)

Yale University

• Isaacs Lab (n/a) 

[Thesbane]

You seem like you have good stats for either the BioE or ChemE program at Stanford; ChemE would probably demand more in terms of the quantitative aspect. If you are interested in genetic engineering / biological circuit design, then Stanford BioE has a couple labs active in those areas (Smolke, Endy, Qi labs). BioE offers self-paid masters position (about 5-6) every year, where Chemical Biology does not.

Also suggest you looking into MIT BE program. Weiss, Church, Collins are a few labs that come off the top of my head. In particular, Weiss and Collins labs are probably as deep into genetic circuit engineering as one can get.

From what I understand the Chemical Biology program research focus concerns itself either with the chemical aspect or the system level. Genetic engineering is a vastly different field than that.

 

Regarding do you stand a chance: It's a crab-shoot when you are an international student applying to Stanford or MIT. That being said, your GPA is definitely great (in top quartile at Stanford BioE I'd say). GRE Quant could be better (ideally 90%+) but not a deal breaker, nobody really cares about general GRE. Did you graduate from an international school? If so, faculty may have a hard time calibrating your GPA and the quality of your courses. I'd suggest taking a GRE subject test in Biochemistry / Chemistry / Physics / Maths, whichever you can do well on and try to get above 85%. Do you have quality publications? Probably the single best indicator of whether you stand a chance is whether if you have published on well-respected journals as first or second author.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Thesbane

[Sergio777]

For work I will need the following ingredients-catalog BRUMER?

Edited May 29, 2018 by Sergio777