The PhD course in Developmental Biology is an Interdisciplinary, Innovative Ph.D. Course and aims at providing the students with a high profile and highly interdisciplinary approach, because it is based on widely diversified conceptual and methodological approaches: In vitro cultures Genetics of bacteria, yeast, Drosophila, mouse and plants Chemical genetics Heterologous expression in bacteria and eukariots Cell / organ genetic transformation Biochemistry and Molecular biology "omic" studies (transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, interactomics etc.) Cell fractionation Microscopy Immunocytochemistry and electron microscopy Live Cell Imaging Structural biology Main themes addressed by this Ph.D. Course: Cell membrane: organization and function Receptors: growth factor receptors / immune receptors / GPCR / intracellular / nuclear receptors in animals and plants Signal transduction Regulation of and from the cytoskeleton Nuclear and organelle dynamics Molecular motors and other cellular machines Intracellular traffic / transport Post-translational modifications and their regulation Nuclear matrix, chromatin and genome Control mediated by RNA / non-coding sequences and their functions Cellular processes in development and disease Study of cells in 3 and 4 dimensions Determinants of cell fate Stem cell biology Biology of subcellular organelles Biology of single-celled organisms Microbes (including viruses) and interaction between host cells Immunity and microenvironment Models of human diseases Metabolic pathways: subcellular, cellular and subcellular compartmentalization and regulatory mechanisms Metabolic control Damage and DNA repair Translational cellular science The main goal of our PhD program is to give to our students a basic knowledge in the topics of Cell Biology as well as a broad experimental training with the aim to make them able to compete for international or national calls as qualified postdoctoral researchers. We strongly encourage PhD projects which exploit integrated and interdisciplinary approaches to key aspects of Cell Biology. We also encourage the students to take full responsability of their work and to improve their communication skills. This is done by: i) requiring yearly presentations of their results in the form of public seminars; ii) appointing external tutors for in depth analysis of their scientific results; iii) encouraging their attendance to international and national meetings and stages (they have individual budgets dedicated to these activities). The updating of their scientific background is pursued by encouraging their participation to conferences performed by well known italian and foreigner scientists that we invite each year. These seminars, monographic or coordinated in series, are often co-organised with the BEMM (Biologia e Medicina Molecolare) PhD school or with other PhD programs.