The Life Sciences in the College bring together an extraordinary range of interests, from study of the smallest elements of life to perhaps the most remarkable creation of nature--the workings of the human mind.

Between the extremes in the Life Sciences are faculty whose overlapping interests often extend well beyond traditional academic departments: How are genes regulated so that an egg develops into an adult? How do people learn, associate, and think? How does the Los Angeles population affect our coastal marine ecology?

Faculty and students in the Life Sciences play an essential role in clarifying the mechanisms of life at the most fundamental level. An area as ecologically rich and diverse as Southern California is a natural laboratory for environmental physiologists, plant and animal ecologists, and evolutionary biologists. Scientists in biology, microbiology and molecular genetics, and molecular biology conduct research in cell and developmental biology. Psychologists, neurochemists, neurophysiologists, psychobiologists, and behavior biologists study the underlying mechanisms of behavior. Physiological scientists examine the regulation of human movement.

Opportunities for collaboration within the Life Sciences abound across the UCLA campus. In particular, new partnerships between Life Sciences faculty in the College and colleagues in UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine are creating an interdisciplinary environment that is rare in higher education--and one that yields enormous benefits in bringing the findings of the laboratory more quickly into the hospitals of the world.

In all of the diverse fields within the division, faculty and students play an essential role in building new understanding of our world and the secrets of life.