Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Program

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Program

The Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program offers students the opportunity to study life processes at the molecular level and gain an understanding of biological organisms from a chemical and physical basis.

Major RequirementsHonors Program
BMB Seminar Series

BMB Seminar Series

The BMB Seminar series features presentations by students in the Senior Seminar course. Current students are actively conducting research with BMB faculty and will showcase their research experiences and findings at these Tuesday seminars.

Gottwald Science Center

Gottwald Science Center

The Gottwald Center for the Sciences is the home of the biology, chemistry and physics departments.

With 22 teaching laboratories and 50 student-faculty research laboratories, the space includes lab facilities for organic chemistry, biochemistry and neuroscience; a quantitative science center; a nuclear magnetic resonance center; and a digital biological imaging center.

Chemists in the Kitchen!

In the latest episode, Julie Pollock, associate professor of the chemistry, and colleagues from other institutions test which method is best — deep fry, air fry, or pan fry. Dr. Pollock leads a lab that studies breast cancer and inflammatory disease development and progression.

"Chemists in the Kitchen" is a YouTube series by the National Academy of Science that follows a rotating cast of chemists who cook, experiment, and tinker with all types of recipes and ingredients. 

Dr. Pollock was also featured on the Quick Pickles and Fermentation episode. 

Faculty Highlights

Dr. Michael Leopold
Leopold & Undergraduate Students Published

Michael Leopold, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, along with two undergraduate researchers and co-authors Jamie Kaplan, '26, and Holly Wemple, '25, published "Mechanistic Elucidation of Nanomaterial-Enhanced First Generation Biosensors Using Probe Voltammetry of an Enzymatic Reaction” in the journal Biosensors.

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Dr. Carol Parish
Parish Published

Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, published "Diversifying the Workforce for Data-Related Jobs Starts with Inclusivity in Research" in Diverse Issues in Higher Education

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Dr. Carol Parish
Parish & Undergraduate Students Published

Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, along with an undergraduate student co-author, and in collaboration with Nobel laureate, Roald Hoffmann, published “Variations on the Bergman Cyclization Theme: Electrocyclizations of Ionic Penta-, Hepta-, and Octadiynes,” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

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Dr. Omar Quintero-Carmona
Quintero-Carmona Published

Omar A. Quintero-Carmona, associate professor of biology, published the article "Building the Next Generation of Virtual Cells to Understand Cellular Biology" in Biophysical Journal. This work is a multi-institutional collaboration with other scientists and researchers from the University of Washington, Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Stanford University, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, and the Allen Institute for Cell Science.

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Contact Us

Mailing address:
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Gottwald Center for the Sciences
138 UR Drive
University of Richmond, VA 23173

Program Coordinator:
Dr. Eugene Wu
Academic Administrative Specialist: Emily Phaup