The Center for Plant Biology offers graduate training through several programs.

Graduate Training through PULSe

The main training vehicle of CPB is the Plant Biology training group of the Purdue University Interdisciplinary Life Science Program (PULSe). The PULSe curriculum is designed to provide students with the fundamentals they need to succeed during their Ph.D. work. The core requirements are a combination of general courses, training group-specific survey courses, and laboratory rotations. The core requirements comprise 15-18 credits, consisting of 6 credits of general course work divided into four focus areas. Those focus areas are scientific ethics, scientific communication, proposal writing, and analysis of data.

Graduate Training through Departmental Programs

CPB faculty represent seven academic departments and two colleges. Each department has its own graduate program with unique characteristics. CPB faculty regularly train students through graduate programs in the departments of:

• Agronomy
• Biochemistry
• Biology
• Botany and Plant Pathology
• Entomology
• Forestry and Natural Resources
• Horticulture and Landscape Architecture

Course Offerings

Below is a menu of classes available for graduate students in the Center for Plant Biology to choose from. Departmental graduate programs may have discipline-specific course requirements in addition to these.

Core Courses

Fall

• AGRY 53000 Advanced Plant Genetics
• BCHM 64000 Metabolic Plant Biochemistry
• BCHM 60501 Macromolecules
• BIOL 55001 Eukaryotic Molecular Biology
• BTNY 59000 Cell Biology of Plants
• BTNY 59000 Plant Hormone Biology
• STAT 50300 Statistical Methods for Biology
• STAT 51400 Design of Experiments

Spring

• AGRY 51800 Plant Physiology and Biotechnology Techniques
• AGRY 52500 Crop Physiology and Ecology
• BTNY 59000 Plant Developmental Genetics
• BTNY 55200 Molecular Approaches in Plant Biology
• FNR 59800 Big Data in Forest Research
• FNR 64700 Quantitative Methods for Ecologists
• GRAD 61200 Responsible Conduct in Research
• STAT 50300 Statistical Methods of Biology

Specialty Courses

Fall

• BTNY 59000 Current Topics in Molecular Plant Pathology
• BTNY 56000 Survey of Mathematical Biology
• HORT 59000 Applied Plant Genomics

Spring

• BCHM 61000 Regulation of Eukaryotic Gene Expression
• BTNY 61300 Advanced Plant Pathology
• HORT 59000 Introduction to Data Analysis for Biology