Program

The program is structured around three different kinds of modules; Scientific Skill Modules, Core Modules and Lab modules. These modules run in the first year and a half of the program. Because the modules vary in length and content they also vary in ECTS credits earned. To see the ECTS credit point distribution please click here. The Master's Program in Molecular Medicine is full-time and extremely rigorous. Students should not expect to work a part-time job whilst in the Program. However, the hard work does pay off.

Upon successful completion of all modules students begin a six month period of supervised research for the Master's thesis. Students may select a lab at the Charité or one of its collaborating institutions. Thesis research culminates in the writing of a Master's thesis. Students earn 30 ECTS credits when they complete the thesis module and graduate with a Master's of Science in Molecular Medicine.

After graduation many of our students go on to some of the most prestigious universities around the world to pursue a PhD, while others obtain positions in industry or medically related professions. Please click here in order to find out more about our graduates.

The Master's Program in Molecular Medicine, affiliated with the Charité hospital in Berlin, is a two year, interdisciplinary program. The goal of the program is to provide students with a solid theoretical background in the molecular pathology of disease, as well as hands on training in corresponding techniques practiced both in the research laboratory and the clinic. Furthermore, the program seeks to educate students to recognize basic scientific questions in clinical findings, as well as translate laboratory discoveries into medical treatments. Upon successful completion, students should be able to formulate questions from a clinical perspective, and then suggest, as well as carry out, research strategies to develop answers. Graduates of the program are well prepared to enter highly selective medical schools or Ph.D. programs throughout the world. They also have the option to work in industry or government agencies.

Within the last few years the explosion of novel research strategies available in molecular biology has finally begun to overlap with the clinical experience of medical doctors. The result is nothing less than the generation of a new field, namely molecular medicine. Here scientist's knowledge of the fundamental operations within cells can finally be widely applied, not just to the understanding of disease, but more significantly, to the development of treatments.

While the promise of this new approach is great, it lacks scientists who have been specifically trained in its theory and practice. The shortage stems from the fact that, traditionally, medicine and the biological sciences have developed relatively separate systems of higher education: separate locations, curriculums, professors, and most importantly, separate goals.

As this division is still largely the case, few opportunities currently exist for students to study the two fields in an integrated program. Medical students, for example, who prefer not to practice directly as doctors, but rather wish to conduct medical research with a molecular orientation, have little access to academic programs structured specifically for this purpose. Likewise, students in the sciences with an interest in questions related to biomedicine, rarely have a chance to become familiar with the medical perspectives applied in posing such questions. Consequently, the nascent field of molecular medicine lacks an up and coming generation of researchers qualified to represent both the medical and biological aspects of the field.

The Master's Program in Molecular Medicine being offered by the Charité has been specifically designed to close this gap. As an international graduate program it offers students the opportunity to study the molecular pathology of disease from a clinical perspective. Unlike other more traditional programs available in medicine, biology, and biochemistry, which, at best, might offer a course or two in another discipline, our approach is interdisciplinary from the start. In creating this innovative program, the Charité hopes to train the next generation of scientists, thereby continuing its long tradition of expertise in medicine.