This is a full-credit required course which will be counted, in most of the participating home programs/home graduate units, towards students' home degree electives. Students, regardless of home graduate unit and prior learning, receive a common foundation of the topics and issues particularly relevant to designing and conducting research in the highly interdisciplinary realm of musculoskeletal science. With its grant writing component, the course is mainly directed towards graduate students enrolled in a research program. Students in a course program are invited to attend but will be expected to write a research grant, subjected to the same evaluation criteria. Students outside the Collaborative Specialization in Musculoskeletal Sciences are eligible to register.

Students will achieve an enhanced appreciation of the breadth and complexities of research in the field, and will be better able to discuss disparate topic areas of research, thereby reinforcing a spirit of interdisciplinary research. This course is offered over one term and consists of a series of 12 two-hour lectures to cover topics spanning Bones, Cartilage, and Muscles. Lecturers are experts in their respective topics drawn from graduate units and clinical departments associated with the Collaborative Specialization in Musculoskeletal Science.