Harvard to Offer Undergraduate Concentration in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology

Cambridge, Mass. March 10, 2009 - Inviting a new generation of scientists into the study of human development, disease, and aging, Harvard University will offer a new undergraduate concentration in Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology (HDRB) starting this fall. The new concentration, or "major" - among the first of its kind at any university nationwide - was approved today by a vote of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at its regularly scheduled faculty meeting. It will be available to students starting with current freshmen, the Class of 2012. "The timing of this vote is very auspicious, coming on the heels of President Obama's executive order lifting restrictions on stem cell research," says Douglas Melton, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences and co-chair of Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB). "It's our hope that this program will encourage some of our nation's aspiring scientists to consider careers in human developmental and regenerative biology, fields which offer tremendous promise to better understand human development and regeneration and which hold the promise of finding new ways to combat disease." HDRB will educate students on how human beings develop from fertilized eggs, are maintained and repaired throughout adulthood, and age until the end of life. Students will receive a broad grounding in the modern life sciences by studying important biological principles and how these apply within the developing and regenerating body.