Program Overview

The Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine (PEMM) at the Geisel School of Medicine and Dartmouth College was a degree granting program that encompassed three broad interdisciplinary themes:

• Biomedical Physiology & Immunotherapy
• Cancer Biology, Pharmacology and Molecular Therapeutics
• Neuroscience

Research carried out by faculty and trainees in this program used the most advanced experimental approaches to understand the pathophysiology of disease and to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics.

Students had the opportunity to be mentored by faculty within both the basic and clinical sciences.

The research employed a broad range of biochemical, biological, and molecular techniques, and interfaced with related disciplines such as biostatistics, bioinformatics, structural biology, and chemistry. All students were given thorough instruction in the fundamentals of cell biology, molecular biology, physiology and pathophysiology, pharmacology, and human genetics. In addition, there were special courses on designing, implementing and analyzing clinical trials. Thus, this program provided students with a broad-based understanding of key biomedical problems and to develop their ability to carry out creative biomedical research.

Dartmouth College is located in the picturesque Upper Valley of New Hampshire. Graduate students will have the opportunity to get involved in the local community and enjoy the seasons of New England. More information on the area is available from the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies.

The laboratories at Dartmouth are state-of-the-art and well equipped. In addition to the College and Medical School laboratories located on the Hanover campus, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center constructed a campus on 225 acres in Lebanon, New Hampshire, about 2 miles from the Hanover campus. The facility has fully integrated patient care, medical education, and research activities and is one of the few entirely new medical centers in the country. In addition to standard modern instrumentation available in individual laboratories, core facilities are maintained that include specialized equipment such as electron microscopes, automatic protein and DNA sequencers, tissue culture and hybridoma facilities, fluorescence-activated cell sorter, confocal image analysis, deoxyoligonucleotide synthesizer, peptide synthesizer, DNA microarrayer and scanner, DNA chip reader, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers, and equipment for state-of-the-art genomic and proteomic analyses.

The Dana Biomedical Library houses a complete collection of journals in the biomedical sciences. Dartmouth is known for its outstanding Computation Center, which develops and licenses cutting-edge software and offers both regular and short courses and terminals that are readily accessible throughout the Medical School and the College, including all of the laboratories. The facility provides e-mail service, literature and database searching, extensive electronic journal access, and other network facilities.