Studying Biochemistry at Sussex, you’ll explore this question. Taught by leading biochemists and chemists, you’ll:

study life at the molecular scale

explore the chemical processes underpinning the activities of cells and organisms

discover what happens when things go wrong, leading to diseases such as cancer

find out how biochemistry can help us develop new therapeutics.

From Year 1, you’ll be in the lab gaining hands-on practical skills, recording, analysing and interpreting data from your experiments. You’ll learn about current theories in the field, communicating complex topics and working as part of a team.

The course is informed by the latest research. It’s flexible so you can tailor your degree to your interests and career aspirations. You’ll be inspired by modules in areas such as medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, cell signalling and neuroscience. You’ll be supported by a friendly community of scientists in the School of Life Sciences. Our student mentoring programme can also provide you with academic support should you need it.

When you graduate, you’ll have skills in:

purifying and analysing key biomolecules such as nucleic acids and enzymes

exploring genomics data

carrying out your own research project.

With such skills, a variety of careers are open to you, in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industries, or within forensics. Your data-handling and analytical skills mean you could develop a career both inside and outside of science.

And in addition, in your integrated Masters year, you gain a strong theoretical and practical foundation for a career in – or related to – research. You’ll spend a semester working on an individual research project in one of our Biochemistry research teams. In this year, you’ll develop advanced skills in technical, analytical and scientific communication skills.