The Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) was founded in 1959 by a team of remarkable scientists: Aaron Novick, who participated in the Manhattan Project; Franklin Stahl, whose experiment with Matthew Meselson demonstrated how DNA strands serve as templates for new ones; and George Streisinger, who first successfully cloned a vertebrate, the zebrafish, many years before the cloning of Dolly the sheep.  These visionary researchers built a highly collaborative, integrated group where physicists, chemists, and biologists work together to dissect the molecular underpinnings of living organisms. With expertise in genomics, cell biology, biochemistry/biophysics, systems biology, microbiology, and evolutionary biology, our researchers use a wide variety of biological systems, from germ-free zebrafish to in vitro-reconstituted molecular machines and computational models.  Students enrolled in our PhD program come away with the broad conceptual and technical skills necessary to succeed in both academic and industry biological research. Our state-of-the-art facilities and excellent support staff allow members of the IMB community to focus their efforts on science. 

All life science, chemistry, and physics laboratories occupy contiguous space in the Lokey Science Complex (8 attached buildings). Under one roof, biochemists, cell biologists, developmental biologists, physicists, organic chemists, and physical chemists use a huge variety of model organisms, techniques, and tools to understand and explain the properties of life.