Biomedical Science
You’ve always wanted to make it better. A bird with a broken wing. A toddler with an earache. A teen with teeth that hinder smiles. A young mother with breast cancer. You want to understand how life functions and use that knowledge to promote good health, to take care of...to treat and to cure. McDaniel’s Biomedical Science major offers everything you need to launch your future in medicine, whether as a pediatrician, dentist, veterinarian, internist, or brain surgeon.
Program Overview
Dr. Theresa Hess '07 chose McDaniel so she could pursue both her passion for basketball and her dream of becoming a vet. She double majored in Biology and Biochemistry and competed for the Green Terror, coached by Becky Martin ’80, M.S. ’81, all four years.
“This is my calling,” says Hess, a small-animal surgeon with Blue Pearl Pet Hospital in Gainesville, Fla. “They talk about Dr. Doolittle, having connections to animals — it’s the same thing. I always wanted to be a vet.”
Distinctive Courses
CHE 1103 - General Chemistry I: Structure and Bonding
BIO 2202 - Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates
BIO 3316 - Animal Physiology
BIO 4493 - Senior Colloquium
Biomedical Science Program Requirements
Special Opportunities:
Alumni Spotlight Dr. Ashley Brown ’06
Brown shadowed her family dentist during the summers and became intrigued by dentistry’s unique blend of art, science and engineering. As high school came to a close, she earned an academic scholarship to McDaniel and left her home in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in the fall of 2002 to become a member of the first entering class of what was now McDaniel College. “McDaniel taught me to think critically, and this helped me tremendously at Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry,” says Brown, whose love of science was fostered by now retired Biology professors Bill Long and Esther Iglich. “This critical thinking helped me to excel, graduating in the top 5 percent of my class.
Faculty Spotlight Chemistry professor’s cancer drug clears final hurdle: FDA approval
The FDA just approved cedazuridine, the cancer drug Chemistry professor Dana Ferraris invented more than a decade ago when he worked in the biotech industry as a medicinal chemist. In its approval announcement, the agency says the combination of cedazuridine with the cancer drug decitabine in pill form is “an important advance in treatment options for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a type of blood cancer, who previously needed to visit a health care facility to receive intravenous treatment.”
Alumni Spotlight Dr. Todd Peters ’02
When he first enrolled at McDaniel College, Dr. Todd Peters ’02 thought his Biochemistry major and pre-med route might lead him to pediatrics. But he found himself pivoting in his third year at Penn State College of Medicine. “The parts of medicine that I really liked — and what I loved about my education at McDaniel — were thinking creatively and systematically, working within teams and learning to cherish getting to know people’s stories,” Peters says. “Once I did psychiatry — especially child and adolescent psychiatry — I was like, ‘Ohhh. That’s what that is.’”