MSc Cancer Research and Molecular Biomedicine

The University holds regular open days, where you will have the opportunity to tour the campus and find out more about our facilities and courses. On this day, you will find out more about the course and meet academic and admissions staff who will be able to answer any questions you have. For more information, see Open days .

Please apply viaour online application form . See the application and selection section for details of the supporting documents we require.

We recommend that you apply as early as possible. We reserve the right to close applications if the course is full.

We also offer the Transformative Oncology course, which is 100% online and part-time. This course is research-led, clinically relevant and medically applicable education for those who want to gain a greater perspective and understanding of the field of oncology to improve outcomes for patients with cancer.

You may also consider the Oncology Research course to develop your skills in cancer research. This MSc develops your understanding of the scientific basis of cancer and its treatments and how to evaluate the potential effectiveness of new treatments.

We require the following documents before we can consider your application: 

• Transcript of your studies to date.
• Degree certificate (if you have already graduated).
• Personal statement or statement of purpose.
• Curriculum vitae (CV). Please, make sure you explain any laboratory or project experiences that you gained outside your standard undergraduate laboratory practicals, which should also be listed in the official application form.
• Evidence of English language ability.
• Two academic references. You must provide the contact details of two referees in your application form.

Both references are compulsory. At least one should ideally be from a lab or project supervisor. Applications will not be considered for a final decision until two references are received.

You must provide the contact details of two referees in your application form. Both references are compulsory, and at least one should be from a lab or project supervisor. Your referees will be contacted directly and asked to provide a letter of reference. When providing referee details, you must ensure the email addresses are accurate and official, typically ending with an institutional domain. We do not accept references provided from a personal email address, eg Hotmail or Gmail.

If any of the supporting documents are not in English, you must also provide us with official or certified English translations.

If English is not your first language, we require proof of your English language ability. If you have already taken an English language qualification, please include your certificate with your application. We cannot provide an initial decision on an application without seeing some evidence of a good level of English language ability. If you do not provide this when you apply, your application will remain on hold until evidence is received.

On this research-focused master's you will undertake a half-year project in the laboratory of a leading biologist working in the fields of cancer research or molecular biomedicine. You will develop your skills in relevant lab techniques and receive training in data analysis, management and oral/written presentation, all in the context of your own original project in cancer research or molecular biomedicine. This will prepare you for future job or PhD interviews, allowing you to reference your achievements and demonstrate project ownership, understanding and professional standards in a substantiated way.

To achieve this goal, you will take part in seminars, workshops, small group tutorials and units in statistics and laboratory skills. The learning methods and units are designed to prepare you for laboratory environments and for undertaking research. They will also give you key transferable skills, such as effectively extracting and understanding information from scientific literature and seminars.

You will also learn how to adapt to both scientific and lay audiences, developing your science communication skills through oral presentations, poster presentations or written reports. This will prepare you for elevator pitches on job or PhD interviews and equip you for a career in academic research, the biosciences industry, as science writer or in similar professional areas where experience in research will be valued. The skills you gain will help you make informed career choices about the professional area you may want to work in.

Information about the projects in cancer research or molecular biomedicine

Please be aware that this programme will not offer traditional lectures introducing you to biological sciences. Instead, it will focus on enhanced research-related training in this field. Therefore, you should have conceptual knowledge and understanding in the scientific area of your interest.

Early in the programme, you will choose your own laboratory project from a list provided by your programme director. We have over 200 research-active labs that give access to a wide selection of projects. The cancer research and molecular biomedicine programme provides you with access to a broad range of topics. This includes a range of different cancer contexts focusing on a variety of cell biological mechanisms including endocytic trafficking, migration, cell signalling including mechano-transduction, ROS metabolism and more. It is important to note that our projects are not of a clinical nature but concern fundamental cancer research, though often in collaboration with clinicians. Outside the cancer realm there are many different inherited disorders that are being studied at Manchester and might be of interest to you. For an idea of the breadth of available projects, browse our research pages.

This programme is ideal if you aspire to a research-related career in cancer research and molecular biomedicine with its wide range of approaches and disease contexts. Once allocated to one of your chosen projects, you will contact your supervisor, who will guide you through writing a literature review and project outline. This will prepare you for your project experience in your supervisor’s laboratory, where you can take ownership of your hands-on experimental work during the last six months of the programme.

PhD with integrated master's

If you're planning to undertake a PhD after your master's, our Integrated PhD programme will enable you to combine your postgraduate taught course with a related PhD project in biology, medicine or health.

You can also visit this page for examples of projects related to integrated master's courses.

This course aims to:

• Provide you with real laboratory experience embedded in an active research team, where you can take ownership of your research project and gain an understanding of mechanistic approaches to problem-solving in the field of cancer research and molecular biomedicine.
• Ensure you have a working understanding of how to apply advanced and cutting-edge scientific methods in your field of research.
• Enable you to efficiently capture complex science from literature or research seminars.
• Give you transferable skills in critical reasoning and reflection, collaborative team working, communication, problem solving and decision making.
• Develop your skills in science communication in spoken, written and poster form, both in specialist and lay terms, also to prepare you for your future PhD or job interviews.

A wide range of research projects: We have over 200 labs offering a wide range of research topics, providing you with the opportunity to pick a project that is tailored to your career.

Experiencing lab environments: You will receive direct one-to-one support from an experienced researcher during the entire programme, including a six-month experimental project embedded in a research-active laboratory and team.

Intense training in research-relevant skills: In addition to experimental skills learned and applied during your project period, you will study course units dedicated to laboratory skills, statistical analysis, experimental design and research ethics.

Learning to capture research topics and fields: You will learn how search, store and understand information and structure this in a literature review, which will capture the scientific field and context of your research project. You will be supported by your supervisor during this process. In addition, you will attend scientific seminars and present your understanding of the content. You will be guided on how to prepare for the seminar, optimise notetaking and structure your presentation.

Transferable skills in science communication: Communicating complex information for a range of audiences is an essential skill in specialist professions. You will develop your skills in presenting in oral form, at a poster session and in written projects, on topics given to you and reporting on your own project work.

We use a range of teaching and learning methods, including tutorials, workshops, seminars and research placements.

Find out more by visiting the postgraduate teaching and learning page.

• written reports on your research projects and tutorials
• oral presentations
• written assignments
• posters
• multiple choice exams
• critical assessment of literature
• online statistics exercises.

Doing my master's at Manchester has given me the opportunity to acquire extensive laboratory experience and enriched my knowledge in the field of cancer. This is also combined with a great student life!

Elli Marinopoulou

You will be able to access a range of facilities throughout the University.

The aim of this programme is to prepare you for a research-related career, which can be at academic institutions, research-based companies, in science writing or any other profession where research experience is valued, for example in funding organisations or certain branches of patent law.

During this programme, you will receive intense training and be given the opportunity to take ownership of a research project, demonstrate professionalism in all aspects of your work, learn to operate in teams and to communicate your science in efficient and audience-adequate ways. This will enable you to perform to high standard on PhD or job interviews, being able to influence panels through substantiated descriptions of your achievements. The transferable skills you develop are designed to help facilitate your career progression.

Most students on our programme will go on to undertake PhD studies at The University of Manchester or elsewhere, or they continue their career in the industrial sector where the rapid recent expansion of biomedical science and the ever-increasing demand for advanced biological analyses and experimentation at all levels of complexity emphasises the requirement for suitably trained research graduates.