All first-year graduate students in the Department enroll in PHBI 552, during which time they spend several weeks in different research laboratories of faculty in the Department. At the end of the Spring semester of the first year of graduate study, students usually select a graduate advisor and begin or continue a research project in that laboratory. Because many faculty members conduct collaborative research projects with other members of the Department, it is not unusual for a student to develop a research project that utilizes the facilities of more than one laboratory.

By the fifth semester of graduate study a research project should be sufficiently well developed for the student to be able to defend it before a committee composed of several faculty. Once this qualifying exam has been passed, students usually spend full-time on their research project.