The mission of the department is (1) to create and disseminate new knowledge in the biological sciences through research, (2) to provide for our majors the highest quality, nationally recognized, graduate and undergraduate educational programs, (3) to provide exceptional science training to support the University's general education requirements, and (4) to contribute expertise in support of science education in the community including efforts aimed at K-12 science whenever resources are available.

The educational goal of our program is to prepare students to pursue advanced and professional degrees successfully and/or enter the workforce with the tools to continue life-long advancement, educate voters on scientific policy, and to contribute to our ever-expanding understanding of biological processes. Our research goals are to build, expand and/or establish nationally recognized programs, and conduct research that has both basic and applied value. As such, we serve as a resource for the state and nation, helping to establish science and environmental policy, and providing economic development via the active transfer of biological research into practical applications.

Current Environment

Teaching. The department currently serves approximately 1390 undergraduate majors and 148 graduate students. There are 64 tenure-track faculty members, 14 permanent instructors. Included here are seven endowed professors, one Boyd Professor, and the 2002 LSU Distinguished Research Master in Science, Technology and Engineering. Approximately 1/3 of all students on the Baton Rouge campus are receiving formal instruction from our faculty in any given semester. The number of credit hours generated by the department is almost double that of any other unit in the College. The department routinely graduates numerous baccalaureates holding University Medalists, Latin honors, Goldwater Scholarships, as well as graduate students with prestigious awards. At any given time, about 10% of our undergraduate majors are participants in the Honors College. Undergraduates participate in research through grants from the National Science Foundation (Research Experiences for Undergraduates), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and special grants from other agencies and foundations. Numbers of undergraduates served by the department has continued to increase, and current retention rates suggest increasing numbers of majors for at least the next four to five years. The numbers of students registering for introductory biology is predicted to grow by as much as 10% per year, and the total number of students in freshman courses has increased dramatically in the past five-eight years.

Research. The faculty is organized into three divisions: 1) Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB); 2) Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology (CDIB); and 3) Systematics, Ecology and Evolution (SEE). The Department of Biological Sciences has long-standing strengths in evolutionary biology and ecology and maintains close ties with faculty colleagues in the Museum of Natural Science. Further, all graduate students advised by museum faculty are enrolled in the graduate programs of Biological Sciences. Also, the Department is well known in the areas of plant biochemistry, animal physiology, and aquatic and marine biology. Emerging areas of the department include evolutionary genomics, cellular signaling and transcriptional control, macromolecular structure and function, and biodiversity.

Extramural funding in the Department is at an all-time high and continues to grow at a remarkable rate. As of summer 2004, the total committed grant dollars in the department ($32 million) are up by well over 2-fold compared to 2001. This total includes research, instructional and infrastructure grants. Funding in the department comes from diverse sources and includes the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Minerals Management Service, Office of Naval Research, National Institute of Justice, Sea Grant, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, HHMI and others. Interdisciplinary research is important and encouraged, and these multi-investigator efforts result in additional grants not credited specifically to Biological Sciences (e.g., USDA through the Agricultural Center, additional Sea Grant funding through the Sea Grant Office, and grants routed through SCE and the Museum of Natural Sciences). Based on data assembled by the National Science Foundation, R&D expenditures in Biological Sciences for the LSU System is now ranked 30th among all universities and colleges in the United States (NSF Document). Our department faculty and staff hold more patents than any other group on campus, and several of our patents provide royalties and the means for economic development.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

The Department of Biological Sciences is the largest department in the College of Basic Sciences, and its goals reflect in large measure those of the College. Within this framework, the department lists five goals and specific objectives.
The five objectives (goals) are to:

(1) strengthen an already strong undergraduate program

(2) strengthen the graduate program of the department

(3) enhance the productivity and infrastructure of our research programs

(4) meet and effectively cope with ever increasing instructional and enrollment demands

(5) foster and support interdisciplinary research and training efforts

While each of these goals represents a discrete and tangible component of our mission, they are intimately linked B attainment of each goal is dependent on the progress of all others.

Our overall plan is to foster continued maturation of the department and to bring further distinction to LSU's reputation as a research University. We aim to graduate well-qualified, life-long scholars who will be successful in their chosen professions. While the importance of biomedical research on topics ranging from environmental issues to modern health concerns is unquestioned, we feel that we must educate all our students broadly for diverse career options -- not only our premedical students, but also the biology students who do not seek medical careers. Our biology majors constitute a large and ever-expanding group (by far the largest in the College), characterized by very high academic quality.

Class size and growth in enrollments remains a serious concern. Student demand continues to rise without a proportional increase in the departmental operating budget. Further we are reaching the limit that our teaching facilities will accommodate, particularly in laboratory sections for the Freshman Biology Program. We have engaged in a program for teaching freshman biology lectures in the new 1000-seat lecture hall (Campbell Auditorium), as a means to free additional faculty for participation in upper-division courses, thereby lowering unmet demand in our senior offerings. Associated with the problems of class size and growing enrollment is the need for graduate teaching assistants, particularly as we attempt to meet the unmet demand for upper-division courses.

The department has identified three research thrusts that can attain -- or have already attained -- national/international recognition, and we are working to support these areas with positions and infrastructure. The areas identified for biological thrusts are:

     a) Structural Biology. This area is defined as work aimed at understanding the structure and function of macromolecules and molecular interactions. Strong molecular and biophysical/biochemical approaches are inherent in this thrust. We have existing strength here, and this initiative will complement CAMD as a resource. The area is of intense interest to the NIH.

     b) Biological signaling mechanisms. In the broadest sense this area covers pathways by which living cells perceive changes in the environment and respond to them. The area concerns itself with the function of receptors (broadly defined) that are thought to perceive an extracellular signal, the series of molecular events triggered by the receptor upon ligand binding, and DNA-binding proteins that modulate gene expression at the level of transcription, and signals controlling protein synthesis. Expertise and national recognition across the entire area would be unreasonable, but the department has strengths within this area that can be built into national prominence.

     c) Biodiversity. The ecology, evolution and systematics group on this campus has had a national reputation for some time and finds its center in the Department of Biological Sciences. We are located perfectly to study many areas of high biological diversity in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean basin, and Central and South America. As conservation, anthropogenic contamination, and biodiversity issues continue to increase in importance, we should continue to enhance and rely on this strong group and their research efforts.