Department of Microbiology & Cell Biology 

Welcome to the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology

In 2019 our department merged with the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience and we have officially changed our name to reflect the growing diversity of educational and research opportunities we offer. The merged department houses numerous degree options that prepare students to enter many exciting and emerging fields of research and service. Students can choose from several areas of study that form the foundations and basic level of understanding to solve a variety of problems faced by modern society including human physical and mental health, environmental health, alternative energy, and climate change. Specifically, our faculty are world renowned for their scientific expertise in biomedical research including molecular and systems neuroscience, infectious diseases, immunology, host/pathogen interactions, disease ecology, cell and developmental biology, microbiome, cellular signaling, and pathogen biology. Our faculty are also internationally recognized as leaders  in a range of environmental microbiology research areas, including microbial ecology, biofilm biology, geomicrobiology, astrobiology, bioremediation, and biofuels.

The department leverages this diversity to provide broad, interdisciplinary curricula to both undergraduate and graduate students. Our undergraduate students consistently receive major awards including Goldwater, Udall, Truman, Fulbright, Rhodes and National Science Foundation fellowships. Our undergraduate curricula can prepare students for either immediate job placement or pursuit of advanced basic science or health professional degrees. Our graduate students successfully compete for National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), American Heart Association, and Fulbright fellowships. Our doctoral students routinely go on to prestigious postdoctoral fellowships (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, NIH, Johns Hopkins, University of Washington and UC Berkeley) or obtain highly sought-after industry positions.

The Microbiology major has six main undergraduate tracks: Microbiology Pre-Med, Environmental Health, Environmental Microbiology, Biotechnology, and Medical Lab Science. We also offer Microbiology and Genetics minors to enhance other majors; the Microbiology minor is often combined with a degree in Biochemistry. The Cell Biology and Neuroscience major has two tracks, Biomedical Sciences and Cell Biology and Neuroscience, and offers minors in both Genetics and Global Health. We are the primary department at MSU for pre-medical and pre-veterinary training. As such, we provide advising for all MSU Pre-Veterinary students and offer a Certificate in Pre-Veterinary Medicine. The department is home to the Montana Medical Laboratory Science Professional Program, and our faculty participate in both the WWAMI Medical Education Program and the WIMU Regional Program in Veterinary Medicine. The department contributes significantly to MSU’s Centers for Biofilm Engineering and Mental Health Research and Recovery.

As a research-intensive department, we offer graduate and undergraduate students the opportunity to experience research under the mentorship of world-renowned scientists.  Our faculty are externally funded by NIH, NASA, NSF, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Energy (DoE), and Montana Agricultural Experimentation Station (MAES) as well as by prestigious private foundations, including the W.M. Keck and Murdock Foundations. Students doing research in our department have access to state-of-the-art facilities for biochemistry, flow cytometry, genomics, proteomics, cell biology, microbiology, and (meta)genomics/bioinformatics.

If you are an existing or future undergraduate or graduate student interested in our research, please reach-out to one of our academic advisors for help in finding professors with available positions. For information to do so, please contact [email protected].

We welcome you to explore all that our department has to offer, and we are excited you have demonstrated interest in us.  Please don't hesitate to contact us.