Research in microbiology is going on throughout MIT and includes more than 50 faculty. These faculty are from several departments and divisions in both the Schools of Science and Engineering, including: Biology, Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Materials Sciences and Engineering, and Physics. Many labs take multiple approaches to studying and manipulating microbial systems and the expertise and research covers a wide range of areas, including biochemistry, biotechnology, cell and molecular biology, chemical and biological engineering, computational biology, ecology, environmental biology, evolutionary biology, genetics, genomics, geobiology, immunology, pathogenesis, structural biology, synthetic biology, systems biology and virology.<br><br>The program integrates educational resources across the participating departments, to build connections among faculty with shared interests from different units, and to build an educational community for training students in the study of microbial systems.<br><br>The graduate training program aims to attract and train a talented group of students interested in a range of aspects of microbiology. The program will provide students a broad exposure to underlying elements of modern microbiological research and engineering, and will provide depth in specific areas of microbiology during the student's thesis work. Students completing this program will be prepared and able to go into a range of fields in microbial science and engineering. Students with interdisciplinary training in microbiology are in increasing demand in both public and private sectors. With the broad interdisciplinary training and high quality in-depth research experience, students from this program will have excellent career options in academic, industrial, and government settings.