Chemistry vs. Biochemistry PhD Programs

[samman1994]

Hello everyone,

I am interested in structural biology and biophysics, and have been applying to schools with labs that have interesting structural bio research programs. I was told by one of the professors at one of the schools however, that their Biochemistry program is relatively small, and that he can guarentee me entrance via the Chemistry program (he's gone so far to say he's already discussed it with the committee and even has looked me up on Linkdn). I plan to apply to both the Biochem and Chem, but if on the off-chance I don't get into Biochem, and get into Chem instead, I'm curious as to how much of a factor this is in the PhD program. I've looked at both programs, and the primary difference is simply the classes you take. You have to take 6 classes in the major, so that means I'd have to take 6 chemistry classes. I don't really have any desire for synthetic or physical chemistry, albeit some NMR classes might be cool. I've discussed this topic with my previous PI, and she told me she knew a person during her PhD program who did something similar (got a PhD in inorganic chemistry even though she was in a Biochem lab), and she hated it because she thought all the biochem classes were cool and thought all the inorganic classes were boring. However, outside these 6 classes, everything else is the same. 

Has anyone been in a similar situation? I.E. majoring in something outside your field, but working in a lab in the field you are interested in (and doing your dissertation in that field). I don't want to be miserable during my PhD program, but if that is my only option to get into a PhD program, I also think it would be foolish to turn it down just because of 6 boring classes. Thank you ahead of time!

[Eigen]

You know my feeling on this, but I'll say it again:

Biochemistry is part of chemistry, and you come across far too disinterested/dismissive of the rest of your field. 

I would expect any reasonable biochemistry PhD to be able to teach general chemistry and organic chemistry, and many of them are also expected to teach at the inorganic/physical interface. 

I know you're not interested in academia as a career (iirc), but I think the same applies to some degree outside academia- biochemistry is considered a subset of chemistry, and while you may not be as versed in physical or synthetic chemistry as others, you're expected to know some of it. 

I honestly can't imagine a good graduate level biochemistry education that didn't require grad level physical chemistry- either QM for the modeling/spectroscopy side of things, or thermo to mesh with biophysical chemistry. Similarly, I think physical organic is a fundamental class to understand how we probe enzyme activity and predict mechanisms. Things like kinetic isotope theory are frequently not covered well elsewhere. 

Sure, in some very specific biochemistry programs at a medical school these topics would be wrapped up in "biochemistry" sounding names- you might take an actual biophysical course, or an enzyme mechanism course. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be taking these courses at the graduate level to have a full education, imo. 

The other end of biochemistry would be in a  biology program- and similarly, you'd be expected to be grounded in that discipline as well, and able to teach molecular and cellular biology courses, with a concomitant knowledge of cell culture and molecular techniques. 

Especially for you, since your main interest is NMR... I can't mesh this in my mind with *not* taking graduate level pchem classes or organic classes. That's where you learn, in depth, the techniques you want to use. 

[samman1994]

Hi Eigen,

I understand where you are coming from, but on an upper division/grad level course, Chemistry and Biochemistry courses are day and night difference (at least the ones I've taken). Yes Biochemistry incorporates organic and physical chemistry, sometimes immensely, but Chemistry courses do not incorporate biochemical aspects. I've taken 2 grad level chemistry classes, and they both focused on synthetic chemistry. Yes there were some aspects of biochemical molecules (i.e. using amino acids in synthesis) but that is about the extent of its connection to my field. The 2 grad level biochemistry courses i took, instrumentation used for structure determination of macromolecules and an entire course on protein folding and protein-protein interaction. Yes aspects of physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, and organic chemistry were used in both courses, but the primary focus was its implementation on proteins, viruses, etc. on macromolecules. 

What I'm trying to say is, the focus of these classes, and how useful it will be to me and my field can differ wildly. Yes I could take a course on physical chemistry that focuses on the exact quantum mechanics of an IR or UV, or I can take a course that describes how modern drugs are designed through various screening methods by various assays and instruments. On a more specific focus, yeah I can take a course on a small molecule determination using NMR, or a course on protein structure determination using NMR (huge differences). Case in point, both in my undergrad lab, and in my current job, the 2 biochemistry courses I took have helped me understand and do my job better 100 fold. The chemistry grad level courses I took haven't really helped me at all. 

There is a difference between covering the basics (which is what you do in your undergrad), and specializing in a field (synthetic chemistry for O-Chem, physical chemistry for quantum mechanics behind instrumentation, etc.). As stated, there are some cool NMR and instrumentation classes that I could take that would be under chemistry, but the majority would be synthetic or inorganic, which would be a bit unrelated to what I'd like to focus on (structural biology, unless you want to focus on synthesizing peptides). Again, not that Chemistry PhD would be useless for a Biochem focus/dissertation, just that a Biochem PhD would be immensely more useful/helpful. However, I only have experience in my courses/classes during my undergrad (all this is based off of that), and the stories my previous PI has told me (she strongly advises I do not do a Chemistry PhD because I wouldn't like the courses I'd take). Again, I think it would be stupid to basically not go to grad school just because I don't like the courses, but I also don't want to be miserable either. 

However, as stated, my experience is limited, and while it may seem I'm disagreeing with you, I'm just discussing my experience with these courses, and am really just trying to understand outside of my school, is it really that much more different? From what I've garnered in my previous experience, it seems at a graduate level Chemistry and Biochemistry courses can be really different. One final thing to note, I really want to focus more on cellular/molecular bio aspect too. I feel in a Biochem course, I'd be able to focus on cellular/molecular but also on organic/physical (at least to their extent to biochem and instrumentation); whereas I feel as if Chem would really limit my focus to synthetic and the quantum of the instrumentation. Thank you for your feedback by the way!!!

 

[Eigen]

At the graduate level, you shouldn't need the material to focus in exactly on what you want to learn. You should be able to learn it one setting, and see how it applies to your research- that actually broadens you as a scientist, quite a bit. You shouldn't need a course to tell you the applications of physical chemistry to macromolecular systems, you should be able to learn the foundational material and apply it to what you need to. Graduate school courses aren't always about a specialization- they're about actually learning the stuff you skipped over in undergrad. And they're short parts of the start of your PhD. Your specialization is about what you do in lab, and how you further your expertise in an area by reading and teaching yourself. 

That said, when I say courses on NMR, I don't mean small molecule vs macromolecular determination. I mean courses on NMR- how to write pulse sequences, how to design experiments, and the fundamentals of how an NMR works. That's what takes you from a user (someone who can follow procedures) to a scientist- someone who can branch knowledge out into new areas, which is what a PhD is all about.

The base problem, to me, seems to be that you see Biochemistry as a different discipline from Chemistry, when it's part of chemistry. It's the same reason why organic chemists have to take inorganic and physical chemistry, and many of them have to take biochemistry.

That said, you say you want to focus on the more biological side. Do you have a background in molecular biology that will prepare you to take graduate classes in the area?

FWIW, I teach both synthetic organic chemistry and biochemistry, and teach cell and molecular biology oriented biochemistry as well, including courses on tissue culture techniques, so I feel like I have a relatively balanced appraisal of the different approaches. 

If you want to talk about value for your PhD, I think you gain a lot of flexibility and perceived value on the job market from being on the chemistry side of biochemistry rather than the biology side. The biology/biomedical sciences field is hugely oversupplied relative to the chemistry side, and every lab in the world will value someone who has the background in traditional instrumentation (mass spec, spectroscopy) and some skill in synthesis/separations, especially when added to a strong foundation of biochemistry and molecular research techniques. 

If you're interested in structural biology and biophysics, then IMO you shouldn't be applying to Chemistry and biochemistry programs- or a lot of biochemistry programs. You should be applying to biology programs that are strong in structural biology, including some biochemistry and molecular biology programs. But structural biology isn't exactly biochemistry- and you need to be specific about where you fall along that spectrum.

[samman1994]

I understand what you're saying, but from my experience recently in the job market (this is for BS degrees though, not PhD job market), it seemed the major job market was biology/biomedical sciences in big pharma. Most of the jobs wanted someone who knew PCR and cloning work, or how to work with mammillian cells. Few jobs really cared much for instrumentation outside of Mass-Spec or HPLCs. I've been applying to programs that have interesting structural biology labs, and haven't been looking too much into their programs (i.e. what type of classes do they have, how many years it'll take, rotations or not, etc.).From what I've seen, structural biology can fall into a broad range of categories depending on the school. Most of the time it falls into Biochemistry and molecular biology departments. Sometimes it falls into Chemistry and Biochemistry departments. 

By the way, interesting note (to you at least), the situation I am having above is actually with Iowa State. I'm applying to the BBMB program, but the persons lab I want to join told me to apply to the Chemistry program (he said much more funding, its bigger, better to get in), but he also told me I'd have to take 6 upper division chemistry courses as well but some of them were NMR so I might find them interesting. My concern was what if I got rejected by the BBMB program, but accepted into the Chemistry program, and wanted to know if there really is a big difference (which according to you, there are differences in classes, but if anything it's a good difference). Thanks for the feedback as always!

[TakeruK]

I'm not in Chem/Biochem but I am in another similarly multidisciplinary field. My work is on the study of planets around other stars, which is a field that lies well in between Planetary/Earth Sciences and Astronomy. These two fields study the same systems from different approaches. In general, planetary science allows you to study planets as actual objects in themselves, where you can learn stuff about their atmospheres, surfaces, interior structures etc. This is a study combining geology, physics, chemistry and maybe biology (if you're studying life on other worlds for example). The other perspective, astronomy, generally studies planets as disturbances to stellar light. By studying how the light from the star is affected by the planet, you can learn about the planet's orbital parameters, and maybe even get spectra (based on light reflected off the planet, and in some rare cases, light emitted from the planet). Maybe this is all boring to you, but I just wanted to set up how my work fits in between two fields.

When applying to PhD programs, I was less interested in the "name" of the program, whether it was planetary science or astronomy. I chose the program that would provide the better support and better connection to the research advisor. My PhD program was in Planetary Science even though my BSc and MSc were both Astronomy. I had 6 required classes as well, and they were in planetary science. Some of them were not very useful to the exact topic I was studying. For example, learning about seismology and earthquakes was not useful to the type of planet work I was doing at all (however, I thought it was very cool). Some of them are tangentially related, for example, the planetary atmospheres class focused on the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, but I was studying gas giant planets in other systems. My work doesn't concern their atmospheres, but instead, only their orbital properties, however future technology developments will allow better study of these atmospheres, so it will one day be useful.

If I had chosen the astronomy route instead, I would also have 6 core classes. Some of them would be very interesting to my work, for example, the class on star structure and the life of a star, or the class on how telescope detectors work. But many would be very useless, such as the class on how galaxies interact with dark matter (this is way too large scale for planets!).

But my point is that grad school is not about taking classes only in your research field. You don't become an expert by taking classes. In fact, I would even say that classes are meant to be foundational knowledge and instead, as Eigen said, it is your research work that teaches you the specialty skills. Especially in multidisciplinary fields, like yours and mine, the classes from each department will give us general knowledge that is useful for someone who has a degree that says "chemistry" or "biology" or "planetary science" or "astronomy" to know. How embarrassing would it be for me to say that I'm a PhD in planetary science but I can't tell you about the minerals that make up most of our own planet Earth (even though it has nothing to do with my dissertation?). These foundational classes are also meant for you to be a scholar in your department: they will help you attend other chemistry (or biology) seminars that are outside of your field and have conversations with other scholars in your department.

You do seem dismissive of other topics within your own major discipline(s), and if I may be blunt in order to be helpful: this is immature but not uncommon for new grad students. I understand the desire to really dig deep into the topics you really want to care about, especially after finally figuring out what you want to do. It's exciting! But keep the big picture in mind. Most academic departments will have the mindset of something like, "you are a planetary science first, and an exoplanet researcher second" (to use my field). Think about it another way: you're kind of saying that you only care about your own work/field and don't want to even learn about other stuff. What are you saying to your colleagues? That you don't care about their work? That you think their efforts are wasted/boring? How will you talk about other people's science when you don't take the effort to learn the basics of fields outside of your own? If you plan to be the type of scientist that only talks about their own work and never about other topics, even if you're not going into academia, this isn't a good look and it won't help you.

To reiterate, at the PhD level, classes are still for general/breadth knowledge and it's your work that will be the narrow specialized knowledge. And as you said, you have only experienced a few classes and they are different everywhere. I have found that especially in multidisciplinary fields, the core classes are actually fairly basic because the point is to get everyone on the same page. All six of my core planetary science classes would be the equivalent of a junior/3rd-year undergrad class for a major in that particular field, with maybe 20% of the material being more advanced. The people coming in with geology backgrounds would know most of the Intro to Geo class already. The material covered in planetary atmospheres would be what an undergrad taking upper level fluid dynamics would already cover. I found that even in some "pure" grad programs (e.g. my Astro program at my MSc school), undergrads come with a wide range of background classes so they need to use the core classes to get everyone on the same page.

Finally, something you can do though: check out the elective class requirements. At these schools, I would ask whether I could take classes in other departments. For me, since there were a number of classes in physics and astronomy that would be helpful to my work, I took most of my electives in physics/astro (including those two classes I mentioned above). So I would advise you to stop thinking that you must only spend class time on NMR and that everything else would be useless. Think of your core classes as developing your breadth and your knowledge as a scholar in chemistry and biology. Your elective classes are for developing broad skills in your areas of interests. And your dissertation work is where you will hone and fine-tune your specific skills in your niche area of expertise.