Highly specific knowledge of the principles of modern laboratory and field biology associated with conducting and reporting on scientific research, including reagent preparation, sterile technique, gene amplification, cloning, sequencing, microbiological methods, data analysis, results synthesis and ecological or evolutionary field studies. The Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology (MCD) is comprised of thirty-five faculty members and four lecturers, whose work focuses on questions of how information in DNA is packaged, read, and interpreted in living cells, how those cells are built and regenerated, and how cells work together to comprise a whole organism.