Academic and Professional Need: Modern research investigations increasingly transcend classical academic and professional boundaries. While traditional university departments provide foundational frameworks for such inquiries, they cannot individually encompass the ever more interdisciplinary nature of today's important research questions. For this reason, cooperative multi-departmental programs are playing greater roles in meeting the University's educational mission, particularly at the graduate level. Genome Science (GS), which may be broadly defined as the advancement of scientific, engineering, and humanistic knowledge pertinent to genetics, presents a persuasive and timely example of such a program.
The interdisciplinary dimensions of GS are many and varied. The rapid advancement of DNA technology has been accompanied by an explosion of data unprecedented in the history of biological research. As a result, investigators are quickly becoming overwhelmed by the volume of genetic information produced worldwide. Computer science techniques have become indispensable in organizing and analyzing this information. Similarly, the demands of sustaining and accelerating laboratory data acquisition have created new challenges in biochemistry, bioengineering, instrumentation and robotics. The interpretation of genetic data has stimulated new advances in mathematical biology, anthropology, and, of course, medicine. And, as skill in acquiring and applying genetic information grows, so does society's obligation to establish ethical, legal and philosophical standards for its safe, effective and moral use.
Increasingly, employers in all sectors --- academic, governmental, and industrial --- are seeking professionals with talents rooted in a traditional discipline but whose vision and skills are wider ranging. For example, the May 1994 issue of Computing Research News reports:
... a panel sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy in early February concluded that in all areas of science and engineering, most PhD's are too narrowly educated. Panel discussions suggested that increased emphasis on cross-disciplinary research and the requirements of research flexibility across a lifetime career will require a broader education.Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that the ambitious goals of the 15-year Human Genome Project initiated in 1990 cannot be attained unless a broad spectrum of scientific, engineering, and humanistic skills are brought to bear in an interdisciplinary strategy.
Utah Capabilities: For these reasons, a formal graduate program in GS at the University of Utah is hereby proposed. In addition to the market demand for professionals well-trained in GS cited above, the prospects for success of this program are greatly enhanced by the following local advantages:
Certificate Basis: The University of Utah GS Program is proposed to be an interdisciplinary certificate program open to students pursuing doctoral degrees in GS host departments. It entails diversifying students' ordinary doctoral degree requirements with a minimum of 31 quarter hours of academic credit devoted to GS. Students are admitted to one of five tracks --- four of which codify existing areas of interdisciplinary research opportunity, and the fifth accommodating custom designed programs. The certificate requirements comprise a GS core course, a course on scientific integrity and ethics, a GS seminar sequence, a suite of required and elective courses appropriate to the selected track, regular participation in an ongoing GS seminar and yearly retreats, and a dissertation addressing a problem in the selected track.