About the Department - Biological & Chemical Sciences

The Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences came into existence on August 01, 1996, as a result of fusion of the former Departments of Biology and Chemistry. The Department is situated at the top of a coral escarpment overlooking the sea and is housed in the Chemistry and Biology buildings. Both these buildings were expanded recently (1996) using funds from the UWI/IDB loan.

There are six teaching laboratories with preparation rooms, one large research laboratory for Chemistry graduate students, four research instrument rooms, two computer rooms (undergraduate and postgraduate), four teaching/seminar rooms, tissue culture and microscopy suites, a fermentation laboratory. Each Academic staff member has an individual office and access to a research laboratory. The Animal House and Microbial Pathogenicity Research buildings in the nearby Biology park provide further staff research space. The Department houses the Barbados National Herbarium (BAR). Through a long standing relationship with McGill University, the Department has access to the marine biology and fisheries facilities of the Bellairs Research Institute of McGill University. This is situated on the west coast of Barbados near Holetown, less than 10km from the campus. Through an agreement with the Barbados National Trust, the Department has access to Andromeda Botanic Gardens on the east coast of Barbados. The Department has its own subscriptions to Nature, Science and Current Advances in Plant Sciences. The Main Library is well supplied with undergraduate textbooks and journals. There is a provision for access to the Dialog on-line system for literature searches.

All members of academic staff have, and students have access to, Pentium based microcomputers. The undergraduate and postgraduate students have access to dedicated clusters within the Department and in five public access computer laboratories on the campus. Staff and students have accesss to the Internet and e-mail.