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Department of Biology and Microbiology

Department of Biology and Microbiology

Welcome!

The Biology and Microbiology Department at South Dakota State University offers Undergraduate (B.S.) and Graduate (M.S. and Ph.D.) degrees in biological science. Undergraduate students can major in biology, human biology, biotechnology and microbiology, and also follow specialized tracks to prepare for medical and other health-related careers, and for careers in secondary education. We offer a broad array of courses taught by 34 faculty members using informed approaches to teaching and offering hands-on laboratory experiences. Graduate students pursue research in infectious diseases, microbiology and mammalian and plant cell and molecular biology. The research faculty provide an intellectually vibrant, collegial and interdisciplinary research environment.

students using anatomy models

Undergraduate Program

A professor wearing a white coat is standing beside a student wearing a white coat and a hijab while they both look at a petri dish.

Graduate Program

researcher holding centrifuge tubes

Research

Department of Biology and Microbiology Events

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Dec 12

Prairie Doc Watch Party

Department of Biology and Microbiology News

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Mackenzie Hollenbeck poses at the Fermilab visitor center near Chicago. Fermilab is a particle physics and accelerator laboratory, but also has a distinctly rural 6,800-acre campus.

Summer to remember for Hollenbeck

As a Davis-Bahcall Scholar, current South Dakota State University freshman Mackenzie Hollenbeck traveled more than 5,000 miles this summer going to some of the top science centers in the world. But the one that really grabbed her heart was only a little more than 100 miles from her family’s Edgemont ranch. The biology major was among eight South Dakota students who were chosen to participate in the Davis-Bahcall Scholars Program, which is designed to help rising university freshmen and sophomores entering science, technology, engineering and math fields develop an understanding of where their passions could take them.

Miller research award goes to Adhikari

Bibek Adhikari, a graduate teaching assistant in biology and microbiology, received the 2024 John E. Miller Research Award from the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi at South Dakota State University.

³ÉÈËÊÓƵ researchers to improve heat tolerance in wheat crops

A team of South Dakota State University researchers — led by professor Wanlong Li — have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture to modify the genetic code of wheat plants to make them more tolerant to heat stress.