The overall purpose of the course is to provide advanced education in biotechnology research. The main objective of the course is to improve the pool of knowledge and technological skills available to support biotechnology-based industry and research nationally and internationally. In the third semester students have the opportunity to undertake their own independent full time research project within one of the research groups in the internationally renowned Biomedical Sciences Research Institute (BMSRI) at Ulster. The BMSRI research covers biomedicine from the molecular to the whole human including disease development, prevention, diagnosis and therapy. BMSRI is ranked within the top five out of 94 universities submitted in the UK REF2014 panel in terms of research power in biomedical science. Significantly, in REF2014 our research environment was awarded an unprecedented 100% 4 (world-leading) and 95% of our research impact was scored world leading (4) and internationally excellent (3) while 81% of research published papers were judged to be world leading and internationally excellent (4 and 3).<br><br>The course is primarily designed for those who wish to develop their career in the biosciences with particular emphasis on biotechnology research, including either academia or bio-pharmaceutical and bio-industries.