In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard offers three degree tracks in biophysics. Students who already hold an M.D. degree may become candidates for the Ph.D. program, while those admitted to Harvard Medical School may apply for a joint M.D. and Ph.D. or may pursue only a Ph.D. Students may pursue research in a number of different departments on the Cambridge campus, at the Harvard Medical School, or at any of the 11 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals, including the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Harvard ranked first in the biological sciences, according to all ranking organizations.
Also in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT offers a Ph.D. program in biology that allows students to focus their research in biochemistry or biophysics. Students can pursue research in any of more than 60 faculty research laboratories, headed by world-renowned scientists, including three Nobel laureates, 29 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 14 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators at six research locations. Over 30 faculty are investigating biochemistry and biophysics areas, such as DNA replication, protein folding, catalytic RNA, and several other areas of investigation. MIT ranked in the top five universities world-wide for its focus on biophysics and the biological sciences.
Stanford's School of Medicine in California offers an interdisciplinary program in biophysics that leads to a doctoral degree. The program draws faculty from 16 departments in a number of schools, such as the Schools of Medicine or Engineering and the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory. The program focuses on major areas of biophysics, such as the molecular basis of macromolecular functioning, single molecule analysis and structural biology, the relationships between molecular properties and emergent research in quantitative cell and organ biology. Research methods include single-molecule analysis, x-ray diffraction and electron microscopy. Stanford ranked in the top five universities world-wide for the biological sciences and biophysics.
UC-Berkeley offers an independent Ph.D. program in biophysics, with over 50 faculty members from over a dozen departments and groups at the university. The biophysics graduate group is a member of the QB3 Berkeley program in quantitative biosciences and the Division of Biological Sciences. Research falls within a number of broad groups, such as structural biophysics and protein dynamics, systems neuroscience, computational biology and genomics or comparative biomechanics. The university ranked fifth and sixth world-wide for its programs in biophysics and the biological sciences.