The Duke University Program in Genetics and Genomics is an umbrella graduate training program that spans several basic science and clinical departments and bridges the medical center and the college of arts and sciences. There are currently 92 faculty with 3 adjunct faculty and 73 students in the program, which was founded in 1967 and has been continuously supported by a training grant from the NIH for the past 25 years. Over the past several decades, the program has served as an important forum for training and education in genetics, including model systems (bacteria, yeast, fungi, drosophila, zebrafish, mouse), population genetics, and human genetics. We have forged a close link between the program and the Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP) at Duke, which is directed by Hunt Willard, and provides for robust, broad and flexible training environment that spans both genetics and genome sciences.

The Duke UPGG program is unique in that it is degree granting. Thus students can either receive their degree via the University Program in Genetics and Genomics, or via their host department that students affiliate with upon joining a laboratory for graduate training. The requirements for the two are different, since students who choose to earn their degree from the host department satisfy both UPGG and departmental requirements. In many cases, the requirements for the UPGG program satisfy the departmental requirements.

The relationship between the University Program in Genetics and Genomics and the Department of Genetics is evolving as a consequence of the merger of the Departments of Genetics and Microbiology to form the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. In the past, the Department of Genetics administered a graduate program in concert with the University Program in Genetics and Genomics. Now the merged and expanded Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology has established a departmental graduate training program, the MGM department, that students from UPGG can choose to adopt if they join an MGM member laboratory. Alternatively, students have the option to seek their degree via the genetics program independent of a departmental affilitiation. These mechanisms ensure a great degree of flexibility in serving the needs of the member labs, 13 different departments, and ensure that students in UPGG have both a common home and can pursue their own unique career paths within the umbrella of the program. 

The curriculum requirements for the Duke University Program in Genetics and Genomics are flexible. Students are required to take two full semester courses, Genetic Analysis (UPG278) and Evolutionary Genetics (UPG287), one additonal full semester course with an emphasis in genetics, and two minicourses selected from a variety of offerings. Courses for first year students are chosen in consultation with the Directors of Graduate Studies (Doug Marchuk and Marcy Speer) and a first year advisory committee. Courses are available and encouraged for students past the first year of study, and decisions about additional coursework are made in consultation with the student's faculty advisor and committee to complement the requirements of the student's own research interests. 

In addition to courses, students participate in other educational activities. These include an annual student organized retreat at the beach, and a biweekly student research seminar series. There is full academic year seminar series, the Tuesday series, which is co-sponsored by the University Program in Genetics and Genomics and the Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy. This series brings leading investigators working in genetics and genome sciences to campus, and students host the invited speakers at lunch following the seminar. The Tuesday series seminars are interspersed with four distinguished lecturer seminars, two in the fall and two in the spring. Students organize and invite the distinguished lecturer series with advice from the program co-director, Doug Marchuk, and students host the dinners with the distinguished lecturers. Students have the opportunity to develop teaching skills as an assistant for one semester. Finally, students complete a preliminary examination at the end of the second year of graduate student and form their thesis committee.