More than 50 years ago, P. Roy Vagelos, MD, and Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth, MD, shared a conviction: that the best science happens when disciplinary walls come down. That conviction led to the 1973 founding of the Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences — a bold experiment in joint governance between the School of Medicine and the School of Arts & Sciences that became known nationally as “the WashU model,” now commonly adopted across programs in the US. In 2022, in recognition of Roy and Diana Vagelos’s extraordinary generosity, the division was renamed the Roy and Diana Vagelos Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences. Today, DBBS trains more than 800 PhD students and MSTP students in their PhD phase across 11 doctoral programs, guided by more than 700 faculty from over 36 departments university-wide — a living testament to what that original partnership set out to build.
Now DBBS is embarking on a new era of innovation and creativity, rooted in the interdisciplinarity envisioned by its founders.
To facilitate this, this summer marked an important structural change: DBBS has moved administratively into the School of Medicine. This shift is not about altering what has always made DBBS distinctive — it is about ensuring our students experience seamless support. By bringing student health, financial aid, the registrar, and other student administrative support together under one roof, we are creating a more coordinated, responsive experience for every DBBS student, regardless of lab or campus.
None of this diminishes our 50-year partnership with Arts & Sciences and the Danforth campus more broadly — a relationship that remains foundational to who we are, and one we are committed to nurturing and growing as we move forward.
DBBS’s new governance structure also reflects this spirit of shared stewardship. Our Committee on Academic Standards, comprised of department chairs, senior leaders from the School of Medicine, Arts & Sciences and the Provost’s Office, and representatives from program leadership, oversees policy and finance. The DBBS Operations Team brings together program directors, students, and faculty at large to guide the division’s on-the-ground training and programming. A Student Progress Committee is launching this month to oversee student performance and monitor progress toward degree completion. And our Admissions Committee collaborates across programs to identify and recruit the best and brightest emerging scientists. Together, these bodies ensure that collaboration and engagement across our programs remain central to how DBBS operates.
Building on this foundation, we are also working to launch a new competency-based assessment framework — one that builds on years of DBBS stakeholders’ groundwork to identify the essential scientific skills every graduate student should develop, regardless of program. In the coming months, we will refine this framework using a process that draws on the expertise of faculty and students across the division, to help shape the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of the future-focused scientist. When fully implemented, DBBS has the potential to be one of the first fully competency-based curricula in graduate education. Such a framework also aims to create a more consistent experience for students across programs, while ensuring the high standards expected of a WashU graduate, early support, and appropriate flexibility for students to meet those standards.
Finally, we are investing in the people who support our students directly. DBBS is creating a new Assistant Dean of Student Success position(s), expanding central support to give students more direct, personalized guidance throughout their training. The Assistant Dean(s) will create proactive student support programs, career development opportunities, and serve as a central guide and support for all DBBS students. This idea came directly from a DBBS retreat of students, program directors, and faculty last spring.
Fifty years ago, Vagelos and Danforth built DBBS on the idea that great science requires great partnership and innovation. As we take these next steps, that idea remains as true as ever — and I am grateful to everyone across DBBS, Arts & Sciences, and the School of Medicine who continues to carry it forward. This is just the beginning of building on the excellence that already exists in DBBS, ensuring we continue to lead in training the world’s best scientists for academia, industry, and beyond.