Graduate Studies, Department of Molecular & Cellular Biophysics and Biochemistry

Letter from Dr. Andrei V. Gudkov, Ph.D.

Greetings from the Department of Molecular & Cellular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Roswell Park Graduate School, a Division of The State University of New York at Buffalo. We hope our web page will bring you useful information about the variety of our people, their investments in our research programs, the learning benefits our program offers and some links to other sites which our faculty have found to be interesting. Our web pages reflect the mission of the department, which is to explore biophysical basis for the understanding and intervening cancer development.

Our Graduate program has been in place for over four decades and is associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB). There are a number of close liaisons between various research initiatives within Roswell Park Cancer Institute and with closely affiliated research institutions, hospitals, and collaboration groups within the Western New York Region. These close affiliations offer unique opportunities for our students to utilize multiple areas of expertise, and to focus on the solutions to major research problems.

Should you choose to come here, you will have the opportunity to employ cutting edge biophysical techniques as well as molecular, immunological, and tumor biological approaches to cancer etiology and treatment, which represents an unusual opportunity to be competitive in more than one area of research. Cancer is perhaps the most complex of human diseases and an understanding of its molecular, cellular, and organismal basis usually involves more than a single discipline of field of study. As research in the biomedical sciences advances into the next century, the emphasis on the types of technology which the investigator will be required to know and use is rapidly changing.

A review by Bruce Alberts (Cell, 92:291-294, 1998), President of the National Academy of Sciences, states: " in an era dominated by gene cloning, many of today’s most distinguished scientist have been enormously productive without any quantitative skills. but the students of today will carry out most of their research in a post-genome-sequencing era, when most of the advances in molecular biology will come from successfully dissecting complicated in vitro systems comprised of pure components (e.g. proteins, nucleic acids, and/or membranes). Here a deep understanding of the key constraints on the system posed by thermodynamic and kinetic factors as well as an ability to use new developments in chemistry and physics as appropriate tools, will often be vital for success" Our program is designed to be flexible to accommodate students with differing backgrounds, and personal to insure an optimal learning environment.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute, founded in 1898, is the nation’s first cancer research, treatment and education center and is the only National Cancer Institute- designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. RPCI is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers. 

A major part of our program is Biophysical Therapy, including photodynamic therapy which originated at Roswell Park, as well as hyperthmia and electroporation. Our Biopolymer Facility has undergone many recent upgrades that provide state-of-the-art equipment for synthesis and sequencing of DNA and peptides with rapid turn around time, and purification of proteins on a micro-scale. Investigators will soon have access to a 4.7 Tesla MRI dedicated solely to research. This will be enormously useful in tumorigenesis studies and in screening for phenotypes of knockout and transgenic mice. In association with the Hauptman-Woodward Institute, we offer training opportunities is structural biology, using x-ray and electron diffraction as well as, NMR spectroscopy and computer modeling, to unveil structures of molecules vital to cancer development and control.

Finally, the most exciting aspect of attending the Roswell Parks Graduate Program is that we are dedicated to the treatment and cure of cancer. Our dedication is reflected in our research. Our programs, although often very basic in nature, are all involved at various levels of cancer therapy and treatment. While having the benefit of being in a large state university system, Roswell Park is not a university. Our unique environment offers unusual "hands on" clinical and preclinical training in cancer and other related areas of biomedical research. We offer you the guidance and support necessary to succeed in the biomedical research field of the twenty first century. We welcome you to join us and celebrate the success of our family.