Cancer Biology Graduate Program

Among the graduate programs offered at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison is cancer biology.

The McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research (also the Department of Oncology of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health) was founded by Dr. Harold P. Rusch in 1940 and was the first basic science cancer center in an academic institution in the United States. Today the McArdle Laboratory is one of only 12 basic cancer research centers in the country that is supported by the National Cancer Institute.

The central mission of the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research has a twofold mission:

• To pursue outstanding research programs directed toward understanding the causes and biology of cancer and the factors that regulate normal and neoplastic growth and differentiation
• To provide training of the highest quality in basic cancer research at the graduate and postdoctoral levels

The McArdle Laboratory offers a course of study and research in oncology leading to the PhD degree and also provides advanced training for recent PhD or MD graduates. The graduate curriculum provides the opportunity for advanced study in cellular, developmental and molecular biology, as well as in the basic medical sciences.

Since cancer research as a discipline is unusually broad, the curriculum requirements are designed to be flexible and to provide students with a maximum opportunity for specialization within this multidisciplinary field.

The goal of our graduate program is to train scientists capable of establishing themselves as independent researchers. Currently, 52 students are enrolled in our predoctoral program in which they obtain degrees in:

• Experimental oncology
• Cellular and molecular biology
• Genetics, bacteriology
• Environmental toxicology or pathology

All students accepted into our laboratory receive financial support, either through a research assistantship or a predoctoral fellowship.