The Bioscience program focuses on adaptive biology, exploring the mechanisms that allow organisms to interact and adapt to their environments to address key global challenges in healthcare and planetary health. It provides expertise in cell and molecular biology, structural biology, biophysics, bioimaging, genomics, bioinformatics and AI. The program emphasizes hands-on research and offers flexibility with electives in bioengineering, plant science, marine science and beyond. Focus areas include epigenetics, infectious diseases, stem cells, aging, disorders and diseases, neuroscience and the microbiome, fostering interdisciplinary approaches and innovative methodologies to tackle complex biological challenges. The program attracts collaborations across different disciplines, such as marine, plant, environmental, chemical, computational sciences and engineering, expanding the program's impact on many of the global challenges addressed by KAUST.

The Bioengineering program is designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge to develop and apply engineering principles to the life sciences. This dynamic field focuses on modeling, monitoring and treating disorders and disabilities affecting living organisms and creating innovative algorithms to enhance our understanding of biological systems. Students will explore how to engineer living systems to optimize their performance, fostering advancements in health and technology.

The Environmental Science and Engineering program prepares students to tackle sustainability challenges in water, energy and food. Focus areas include water treatment, desalination, microbiology, resource recovery and sustainability management. With hands-on lab research and both thesis and nonthesis options, students take key courses like aquatic chemistry, applied statistics and environmental sustainability, equipping them to address global environmental issues.

The goal of the Marine Science program is to develop an integrated understanding of the Red Sea's ecosystem as well as marine conventional and extreme ecosystems in general, including fundamental biology at the molecular and genomic levels, microbiomes, taxonomy, symbioses, global change, marine conservation, associated communities of fish, corals and other marine organisms, and the physical and chemical environment that shapes marine ecosystems. This understanding could impact global nutrient cycling and endangered species and how we preserve and sustainably harvest resources from the oceans.

The Plant Science program focuses on understanding plant growth and function under challenging environmental conditions such as those found in Saudi Arabia. The program studies the fundamental biology of plants at various levels, including genomics, cell biology, developmental biology, stress biology, plant physiology, proteomics and metabolomics. It also explores plant interactions with their environment, both abiotic (heat, salt, drought) and biotic (pathogens, symbionts). This knowledge aims to develop plants with enhanced tolerance to environmental stresses and support sustainable agriculture in arid regions.