Duke Kunshan University

Molecular Bioscience With Tracks in Biogeochemistry, Biophysics, Cell and Molecular Biology, Genetics and Genomics

All biological sciences rest on two central principles – all organisms and their characteristics are the product of evolution, and all life processes have a physical and chemical basis. Simply put, at the most fundamental level, there is a shared molecular basis of life. Despite the astonishing diversity of living organisms, from bacteria living in deep ocean hydrothermal vents to cherry trees flowering in the spring to complex modern humans shaping the world around us, many features of all organisms at the cellular and molecular levels are fundamentally similar because of shared evolutionary history. Discoveries of fundamental molecular mechanisms in one species – a bacteria or fungus or fruit fly, for example – often apply to other distantly related organisms like humans. Solving many of the most perplexing and challenging biological, agricultural, medical, societal, and environmental problems in today’s world requires a broad and deep understanding of the molecular basis of life. The highly interdisciplinary field of molecular bioscience seeks to understand at the level of atoms and molecules how living things acquire energy and chemical nutrients from their environment, how they use that energy to fuel the basic biochemical reactions and cellular functions required for life, how they use molecular information encoded in their DNA to grow, survive, and reproduce, and how their metabolic and biochemical processes transform the environment in which we all live.