The Biology Department's project lab program is a highly innovative educational resource that has been the centerpiece of undergraduate biology education at MIT for over 35 years. In these labs, students learn the principles of experimental design and scientific interpretation in the context of exciting research projects on the frontiers of modern molecular and cellular biology. Contact between the students and the professors who teach a Project Lab is close and constant so that the course provides a supportive environment for many students to experience their first taste of scientific research. The work done in the Project Labs is updated each year to ensure that the subject matter is always on the cutting edge of contemporary research. Students who take a Project Lab emerge with a strong sense of the real world of research, from the conception of ideas to the planning and execution of critical experiments and the communication of their results to others.

Students in the course VII program are required to take a project lab in order to fulfil their degree requirements.

The department offers the following Project lab courses:

7.13 Experimental Microbial Genetics

7.16 Experimental Molecular Biology: Biotechnology II

7.18 Topics in Experimental Biology - Please read this information before registering for 7.18. This course allows students to use their UROP to fulfill the department project lab requirement.