Biochemistry and Genetics with a Placement Year

Biochemistry and Genetics together address the molecular mechanisms that underlie life itself. Biochemistry examines the chemical processes that take place within living organisms, from the structure and function of proteins and enzymes to the metabolic pathways that generate energy and build biological molecules. Genetics explores how hereditary information is encoded, expressed, inherited and sometimes mutated, and how variation at the molecular and genetic level drives diversity, evolution and disease.

Together, these two disciplines form the scientific foundation for much of modern medicine, biotechnology and environmental science.

At Swansea University, this four-year programme includes a placement year, giving you substantial professional experience in a relevant research or industrial setting as part of your degree. You will study the chemistry of biological molecules, the mechanisms of DNA replication, transcription and translation, cell signalling pathways, gene regulation, and the molecular basis of genetic disease. Laboratory skills are central to the programme, and you will develop competence in the practical techniques that define modern molecular biology research.

The placement year allows you to apply these skills in a real professional environment, whether in a university laboratory, a pharmaceutical company, a clinical setting, or a biotechnology firm, and to return to your final year with a considerably more developed sense of how the discipline works in practice.

Graduates are well prepared for careers in pharmaceutical research and development, clinical genetics, biotechnology, biomedical research, science communication, regulatory affairs, and healthcare science. Some enter the NHS as biomedical scientists following further professional registration. Others pursue postgraduate research degrees, either continuing in molecular biology or moving into related fields such as medicine, immunology or computational biology.

The analytical and laboratory skills you develop are valued wherever evidence-based scientific thinking is required.