Ellison said that overseas applications to GSAS are down 15 percent this year, while across the country they plummeted by 30 percent.

Most of the drop, predictably came in applicants from China, he said.

The Faculty Council unanimously approved Ellison’s motion to establish a graduate program for doctoral studies in chemical biology.

Chemical biology is “a relatively new discipline that brings hard-nosed chemistry to the study of biological problems,” Ellison said. “This is the real hot area of chemistry these days.”

Yesterday’s vote comes on the heels of last week’s decision by the Faculty Council to create a doctoral program in systems biology.

The proposal to award Ph.D.s in chemical biology will go before the entire Faculty for a vote in October.

Ellison said if approved by the whole Faculty next month, the doctorate program would place Harvard at the forefront of chemical biology.

The program, which would involve faculty from both the Harvard Medical School and FAS, will consolidate Harvard’s position as “a leader in moving aggressively into this new area...[and] the place to come if you are a faculty member,” he said.

Ellison said he is confident that the Faculty will approve the program and that doctoral candidates will begin applying by the upcoming admissions cycle.

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.