PHILADELPHIA—The Jefferson College of Graduate Studies has been renamed the Jefferson Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (JGSBS) to better reflect the school’s breadth of degrees and programs and overall mission.

“For over 60 years, Thomas Jefferson University has provided the highest quality graduate and postdoctoral education and research training in the biomedical sciences, in order for students and fellows to make significant contributions to the progress of biomedical science through careers in academia, industry and government,” said Gerald B. Grunwald, Ph.D., Dean of the JGSBS and Professor in the Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology at Thomas Jefferson University. “Now it is time to capture that mission in the name of the graduate school.”

JGSBS will continue to offer M.S., Ph.D. and the joint M.D./Ph.D. programs in the biomedical sciences. Those degrees are further complemented by opportunities for advanced study through graduate non-degree coursework and certificate programs, as well as a new undergraduate Postbaccalaureate Pre-Professional Program, and activities of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs.

In 1949, 125 years after the founding of Jefferson Medical College in 1824, training toward M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the biomedical sciences at Jefferson was first formalized when the “Board for the Regulation of Graduate Studies” was formed among the college’s six basic science departments.

Twenty years later, with the establishment of Thomas Jefferson University in 1969, Jefferson Medical College was joined by the Jefferson College of Allied Health Sciences (later the Jefferson College of Health Professions) and the Jefferson College of Graduate Studies, with the latter two respectively representing the undergraduate and graduate divisions of the university offering degrees other than the M.D.

In 2005, the university’s bylaws were amended to permit both JCGS and JCHP to offer graduate degrees, providing a focus for JCGS on laboratory research-based, and for JCHP on practice-based, education and training.

Today, Jefferson has further grown to comprise six schools and colleges, offering degree and certificate programs focused in the fields of medicine, health professions, nursing, pharmacy, population health, and biomedical sciences.