Graduate School of Quantitative and Molecular Biosciences Munich (QMB)

The molecular biosciences are undergoing a major paradigm shift – away from analysing individual genes and proteins to studying large molecular machines and cellular pathways, with the ultimate goal of understanding biological systems in their entirety. The study of biomolecular systems poses major methodological and conceptual challenges, centred around the need for quantitative approaches. This includes the development of sensitive quantitative assays for in vitro and in vivo approaches; improved measurement techniques that ideally push resolution limits to the single molecule level; statistical methods to deal with high-dimensional, often noisy, data sets; and mathematical modelling approaches that reduce the dimensionality of parameter spaces and produce mechanistically realistic, experimentally testable predictions. As a result, systems-oriented biological research is inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking, involving biochemistry/structural biology, molecular and organismal genetics, biophysics, biostatistics, bioinformatics, and theoretical physics. Recently, AI (AlphaFold, computer vision, etc.) has had a huge impact on life science, proving that this field is constantly changing. The mission of QMB is to provide young scientists with the skills and resources to excel in this new multi-disciplinary environment. We seek to train a cohort of young scientists who, while firmly anchored in their primary disciplines, are well versed in multiple approaches and styles of thought. The goal is for the students to be comfortable communicating across traditional boundaries, especially across the divide between experiment and quantitative theory – to become, in effect, scientifically bilingual or multilingual. To this end, the school offers a structured PhD programme consisting of three components: an interdisciplinary research project, a substantial programme of formal course work centred around an interdisciplinary core course that covers key problems in bioscience from multiple perspectives, and activities designed to enhance students' communication skills and their ability to succeed in the competitive profession of science. Additional support is offered by the GraduateCenter.