While Kirby has not yet officially approved the initiative, the four professors spearheading the project hope to receive Kirby’s rubber stamp and to budget plans within the next few weeks.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” said Losick, adding that they had heard a lot of enthusiastic feedback from colleagues.

MSI has also garnered support from the executive committee of the life sciences, which is acting this year as a stand-in for a divisional dean.

“There is really an opportunity to develop in this area,” said Lyman Professor of Biology Andrew Biewener, who is on the executive committee. “We have some good people [in microbial research at Harvard], but we need to have larger numbers in order to recruit.”

This initiative could also affect undergraduates in the near future. Kolter hopes to have microbial courses for students by spring 2005, and possibly even a course for non-concentrators by the following fall.

Schrag added that the new interdisciplinary program—enforced by the other science initiatives cropping up on campus—will give students a way to see the bigger pictures in scientific research and take the “bacteria out of the test tube,” Schrag said.

Losick echoed this point, saying that integrated research is the most logical “cultural change” in science departments now.

“The next big challenge is to see this reflected in undergraduate education,” Losick said, adding that he would be quite excited to see new lab and lectures courses about microbial sciences in the next few years.

—Staff writer Alexandra N. Atiya can be reached at atiya@fas.harvard.edu.