Today she passed her prelim exam – in partial fulfillment of her requirements for a Ph. D. in Cell and Molecular Biology at MSU. The title of her presentation was Deregulation of the Cyclin Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p21 clip1/waf1 in Antiestrogen Resistent Breast Cancer Cells. She presented this morning in the Biomedical Physical Sciences building to approximately 20 guests and her mentor and committee. The presentation was about one hour followed by a 2 hour detailed question and answer meeting with the committee. This is an important milestone on the way to her degree – it affirms that she has attained the required level of knowledge in her field and that her hypothesis is well developed and worthy of being pursued.

In case you’re not particularly familiar with this type of program, it is much more intensive than an undergraduate degree program or even many other graduate programs in which a student simply pays their tuition, attends some classes, and after some arbitrary lenght of time receives a diploma. Here a candidate is accepted into the program and is guided by a mentor and committee of researchers. After about 2 years the candidate is tested as described above to determine not only if their research is on track, but that are sufficiently knowledgable of all relevant areas – essentially everything. Ideally the candidate passes and continues researching until completion. However it is possible he/she could be asked to revise their work, or even to leave the program in the worst case scenario if their progress is not adequate. This is somewhat rare, but is far from unheard of. If all goes well the research will be completed, and a final defense of their work is performed.