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The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) last developed a new curriculum for an undergraduate program in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1992. The intervening years have seen enormous change in both the subject matter and in our understanding of good teaching practices. The Education and Professional Development Committee of ASBMB has been working for the last 3 years to develop a new curriculum that takes account of these changes. This recommendation represents a work in progress; the Committee intends to revisit this issue at regular intervals. It is no longer adequate to describe a curriculum only in terms of the courses it contains. Instead it is important that the description focus on the concepts, content, and topics of the program as well as the student outcomes that should be expected from the program. The recommended curriculum (Table I) is a compromise between the traditional, course-centered approach to curriculum and the more modern content and outcome-centered approach. It is the intent of the Committee that curriculum designers should have flexibility about how the content is organized. The course organization given below is only one of many ways that the material might be organized. The description also contains a list of recommended skills that students should acquire during their undergraduate years in a biochemistry/molecular biology program (Table II). The separation of biochemistry topics from molecular biology topics, as well as the separation of chemistry topics from biology topics, has roots in the traditional departmental division between chemistry departments and biology departments. Biochemistry/molecular biology departments or programs can stand in different relationships to the two core subjects, and the organization of course material may differ substantially from that recommended here. The important things are the overall content and coherence of the program as well as the skills that students are expected to acquire. Research experience is an essential part of the undergraduate experience in biochemistry and molecular biology. However, it is acknowledged that this research experience may in some cases be achieved through well designed laboratory courses rather than through an extended period in an individual research laboratory. The National Institutes of Health and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have commissioned a report on undergraduate biology curricula for those entering the biomedical sciences [1]. This detailed, 144-page report describes the rapidly changing nature of the field and its educational requirements. It is a “must read” for those developing interdisciplinary programs in biochemistry and molecular biology as well as those interested in assessing the strength of their current program.
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