This program's mission is to provide students with:

  • Advanced knowledge in current concepts in molecular, cellular, and genetic processes that contribute to the development and treatment of cancer
  • Specialized training in experimental methodology used to study cancer in a laboratory setting
  • Required shadowing of clinical oncologists to help identify clinically-relevant research questions leading to projects with a potential impact on cancer patients

Learn about our program's curriculum

Curriculum Overview

The Graduate College requires the satisfactory completion of 72 semester hours in order to obtain a Ph.D.

Required Courses

For the first year, students take common courses with other Biomedical Science students.

Cancer is a term that encompasses over 210 different types of malignancies, each with a unique set of biological, etiological, and clinical features. Cancer researchers continue to widen their scope as more is learned, requiring a breadth of knowledge in many areas of research (e.g. cell biology, genetics, immunology, and cell metabolism) to understand the complexities of cancer etiology and treatment.

The Cancer Biology Program provides this knowledge through classroom and research training leading to a PhD degree, and preparing students for a variety of career paths in academic, clinical, and industry environments dealing with the study and/or treatment of cancer.

A campus visual from the Carver College of Medicine outdoor lawn space.

Ready to apply?

You can learn more about the application process and requirements here.

Events

From Risk to Recovery: Integrating Research, Systems & Solutions promotional image

From Risk to Recovery: Integrating Research, Systems & Solutions

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 9:00am to 2:00pm
University Capitol Centre

Recovery Friendly Hawkeye Initiative (RFHI) aims to position the University of Iowa as a national leader in Recovery Friendly Workplace practices by fostering a “culture of care” that supports well-being, mental health, and recovery.

In addition to creating an inclusive environment for those impacted by substance use disorders, RFHI advances both basic and applied research on addiction, treatment, and recovery, spanning foundational science through implementation and evaluation of evidence-based...

REDCap MyCap Training

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 10:00am to 11:00am
Virtual

This is the fifth step in the REDCap training series. In this training, we will discuss using the MyCap mobile app for data collection. We will cover features such as:

Creating participants

Creating tasks and schedules

Active tasks and their unique data output

Direct messages and announcements

This training is a demo and not hands-on. After this training, you will have a basic understanding of the MyCap mobile app for REDCap.

Register by clicking the virtual event link above or by going here:  https:/...

REDCap Data Handling

Thursday, July 16, 2026 10:00am to 11:00am
Virtual

This is the sixth and final step in the REDCap training series. In this training we won't use REDCap at all. Instead, we will cover ways to view and manage your exported REDCap data in Microsoft Excel and Sublime Text such as:

Populating data from one Excel sheet to another with vlookup()

Seeing specific data with column sorting and filtering

Ensuring data is cohesive by creating tables

Looking at how data relates to other data by creating pivot tables

Transforming unusable data to a usable format...