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The Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology (GDCB) was inaugurated July 1, 2003, as part of a reorganization of the biological sciences. GDCB focuses primarily on biological function at the cellular and subcellular level, using molecular, genetic, computational and biochemical approaches to understanding biological function. At ISU, GDCB overlaps with and complements the Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology (BBMB) at the molecular scale and the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology (EEOB) at the organismal scale.

GDCB is jointly administered by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is home to 34 faculty, several emeritus professors, 12 departmental support staff, 37 postdoctoral associates and research support staff, and 78 graduate students. At the undergraduate level, GDCB shares approximately 550 biology majors with EEOB and approximately 70 genetics majors with BBMB and EEOB.

Faculty, staff and graduate students are housed in Bessey Hall, Science II, the Molecular Biology Building and the Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory. The main administrative office for GDCB is located in room 1210 Molecular Biology, and there is a satellite office for GDCB in room 503 Science II. GDCB continues to look forward to the construction of a new building for the biological sciences to allow the department to be physically consolidated.

The GDCB Department and its faculty research programs are amply equipped with modern equipment for research in genetics, development and cell biology. In addition ISU provides excellent research support facilities to minimize unnecessary duplication of instrumentation and to assure high quality, state-of-the-art instrumentation is available to all researchers.

Although a new department, GDCB has a strong research tradition both with regard to the general discipline and with regard to the faculty that comprise the Department. In the 1993 National Research Council (NRC) rankings the ISU Cell and Developmental Biology discipline area ranked 62nd out of 169 universities (35th percentile). GDCB faculty have about $13.6 million in currently active funding, primarily from NSF, NIH, USDA and DOE.