Genetics

Genetics allows us to understand normal events such as development, growth and ageing in terms of the underlying molecular machinery of the cell and helps explain why these processes go wrong in disease.

When organisms reproduce the offspring tend to resemble their parents, but they are not identical to either parent, nor are they simply a mixture of the two parents. Genetics is concerned with explaining the behaviour of inherited characteristics, in terms of the underlying genetic machinery which turns a single cell (the fertilised egg) into a fly, a worm, or a human.

Genetics also explains how over longer time scales, living things change, or evolve, to produce the dazzling diversity of life.

5 year MSci degree

You have the opportunity to undertake a year's placement in an industrial, commercial or research environment and graduate after five years with an MSci (an undergraduate Masters degree) instead of a BSc.