October 6, 2025
Q&A: What to know about the UW biology degree that launched Nobel Prize laureate Mary Brunkow
UW News spoke with Martha Bosma, professor and chair of biology at the UW, to learn more about what students can do with a biology major.Mark Stone/University of Washington
The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute on Monday awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Mary E. Brunkow — an alum of the University of Washington — along with Frederick J. Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body.” Brunkow received her bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the UW in 1983.
UW News spoke with Martha Bosma, professor and chair of biology at the UW, to learn more about the current major, and what students can do with it.
Martha BosmaMartha Bosma/University of Washington
What does the biology major look like right now?
Martha Bosma: We have several tracks for our bachelor of science degrees, including majors in general biology; molecular, cellular and developmental biology; and physiology. Students who are in those tracks all take the same general biology sequence for their 100 and 200 level courses and then go from there into their tracks for their 300 and 400 level courses.
How has the molecular, cellular and developmental biology track progressed since Brunkow got her degree?
MB: What’s interesting about Mary Brunkow’s degree here is that she likely would have taken the same intro series, but then would have gone straight into 400 level classes, which would include taking a lab in cell biology. That would have been so different from what it is now. For example, she would have learned how to extract DNA, but it would have been such a painful and difficult set of techniques to learn at that point. She would have learned a lot about genetics and promoters, and how a gene is regulated based on what its promoter is. She would have learned how to extract messenger RNA using very challenging techniques. This was before we even knew there were other kinds of RNA besides messenger RNA.
Now our students on the molecular biology track have courses where they’re reading papers and learning the techniques that led to this Nobel-winning research and how people understand this science, as well as learning basic molecular techniques. I think it is really cool.
How popular is the molecular, cellular and developmental biology track?
MB: It is extremely popular. That and physiology are probably our most popular tracks. We have so many students that we are actually planning to change the structure of the degree next year. Right now the tracks are very specific — you need to take one class, then another class and then the next class, and if a class in that series is not available, then the person is stuck. It makes it really hard for the students to complete their degree requirements.
We’re still planning what the future of the degree will look like. We’ll still have concentrations, we’re just not going to have required courses in those tracks. With the future degree, students will be able to build their own concentration to some extent.
What can people do with this degree — besides potentially winning the Nobel Prize?
MB: A lot. They could work in startups. They could go to medical school. They could get doctoral degrees. Nongovernmental organizations are not that common in this track because it’s so applied. Basically our alumni can do anything that a molecular scientist could do, from being a scientist at the bench under someone else’s direction, to being at the bench under your own direction and formulating research questions. These are the kind of people who are going to become neurogeneticists or cancer biologists who understand both the patient and the clinical aspects of the science.
But alumni don’t have to stay in medicine. For example, they could do field biology. Imagine a study where someone is trying to understand what causes the differences between a population of birds in one valley compared to the population one valley over. That’s a molecular biology question. It’s awesome. This degree really covers many, many aspects of biology. That’s why it’s such a popular major.
Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about choosing this as a major?
MB: They should do it! And try to work in a lab too. There are a lot of labs that are open to undergraduates. Working in a lab helps students actually take the techniques from class and apply them to a project. Students learn how to ask a question and then how to use these techniques to answer it.
For more information, contact Bosma at martibee@uw.edu.
Tag(s): College of Arts & Sciences • Department of Biology • Martha Bosma