‘Interdisciplinary research’ are the big buzz words these days. As part of that trend, Harvard Medical School and MIT are each starting new graduate programs that aim to train students in more than one field.

‘Translational research’, also a trend, is at the root of Harvard’s new program in Human Biology and Translational Medicine. Here’s how Harvard describes it:

The central research focus for students and faculty in this program is the study of human disease states and the identification of improved means for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Over at MIT, a new microbiology program is getting underway. It will bring in faculty from various departments: biology, chemical engineering, earth and planetary sciences, physics, materials science/engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, etc. The website pays a rare tribute to those often underappreciated bugs that are the workhorses of the biosphere:

They are essential for life as we know it, but can also be agents of disease. They are instrumental in shaping the environment, in evolution, and in modern biotechnology. They are amenable to virtually all modern approaches in science and engineering. They provide natural engineering laboratories for creating new capabilities for industry (e.g., pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy), and are the foundation of pioneering efforts in synthetic biology – i.e. building life from its component parts. Effective study of microbes and their applications demands multiple interdisciplinary approaches that cross all scales of biological organization, from molecules to vast ecosystems.

The first classes in both programs will begin the fall of 2008.