BMB531: Human Diseases (5 ECTS)

STADS: 01010001

Level
Bachelor course

Teaching period
The course is offered in the spring semester.

Teacher responsible
Email: bragea@bmb.sdu.dk

Additional teachers
srd@bmb.sdu.dk
bag@bmb.sdu.dk

Timetable
Show entire timetable
Show personal time table for this course.

Comment:
Kurset kan kun følges af BMB- og Biomedicin studerende.

Prerequisites:
None

Academic preconditions:
Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have acquired basic knowledge from FF503, and from other first-year courses.
• Be able to use a computer.

Course introduction
The goal of this course is to strengthen the specific academic profile of the students and their identity as students of BMB and biomedicine. Furthermore it is the goal of the course to illustrate the necessity of achieving basic competences in other scientific disciplines taught at the first year of their study. More specifically three different human disease-types are studied in the course. The disease types are: inborn errors of metabolism, cancer and infectious diseases. The study of each of the three diseases provides unique opportunities to exemplify, expand and set into perspective and context different aspects of the basic scientific skills acquired in for instance the FF503 course. This course establishes a logical connection between the 1st and second year of the bachelor education by including and expanding specific skills and knowledge from the disciplines of basic natural science, when acquiring competences in biomedicine and molecular biology. Specifically this course builds upon skills and knowledge from the courses FF503 and FF500, and provides a scientific basis for studying Biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and microbiology in later courses.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• The course should strengthen the knowledge and skills in the basic disciplines of natural sciences.
• The course focuses on providing insight into the fundamentals of molecular biology and biomedicine.
• The course develops and strengthens the student’s basic knowledge in the field of biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology and biomedicine by shedding light on basic mechanisms in development of disease in humans.

Expected learning outcome
The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Describe specific biochemical and metabolic processes and understand how they can be disrupted in metabolic diseases.
• Recognize the basic modes of inheritance, and draw pedigrees of affected families.
• Describe the cell-cycle, its components and how this scan be disturbed in cancerous diseases.
• Describe the most prominent hallmarks of cancer.
• Searching and employing databases of scientific literature.
• To analyze gene-sequences, effects of mutations, the mutational spectrum of diseases, to identify recognition sequences for restriction enzymes and finally to identify and analyze reference sequences for human disease genes.
• Describe and exemplify characteristics of infectious diseases.
• Understand microbiological processes and terms, including describing basic features of viruses and bacteria.
• Perform basic web-based bioinformatic analyses.
• To write assignments where a selected disease is problematized and the involved disease mechanisms are described at the level of molecular biology, microbiology and biochemistry employing correct scientific terms and references to scientific literature.

Subject overview


Literature

• Kap. 13 Cowan’s : Microbiology: A Systems Approach, Third Edition McGraw Hill.
• Campbell & Reese: Biology.

Website
This course uses e-learn (blackboard).

Prerequisites for participating in the exam
None

Assessment and marking:

1. Written assignments (3 ECTS), Passed/Not passed, internal evaluation by lecturer. (01010012).
2. Written examn (multiple choice) 2 hours without any aids. (2 ECTS)  Grading according to danish 7-point scale. External censor. (01010002).

Re-exam may have a different format.

Expected working hours
The teaching method is based on three phase model.
Intro phase: 13 hours
Skills training phase: 16 hours, hereof:
 - Tutorials: 16 hours

Educational activities Study phase: 80 hours

• To read and study textbook chapters, scientific articles and websites/databases in order to prepare for the lectures, examinatoriums and the obligatory assignments.
• To prepare for the assignments in the examinatoriums by reading texts, study databases and use analysis programs to answer the assignments.
• To write two obligatory assignments.

Educational form
The intro-fase consists of lectures, which gives a basic introduction to the three themes, exemplified by three different disease types: inherited metabolic disease, cancer and infectious disease. In all three diseases there is particular emphasis in the lectures to also illustrate and exemplify subjects and themes from the other first-year courses, FF503, mathematics, physics and FF500. In the training phase competences and skills in the central and basic subjects of the course are trained by completing assignments. There is a specific focus on achieving skills for searching and analyzing disease databases, mutation databases, Genebanks and other types of databases, as well as using databases of scientific literature (PubMed). Additionally focus is on obtaining skills in using web-based analysis tools for identification of restriction-enzyme recognition sequences, analyzing and visualizing protein structures, homology searches, analyses of mutational effects. The examinatoriums requires that the student prior to attending have worked with the assignments either alone or in self-established study-groups. The study-fase thus consists both in preparing for the intro-phase and for the examinatoriums. The students are expected to study (read and analyze) different texts, such as textbook chapters, websides with scientific content and scientific papers (mainly review papers) in order to achieve the required competences and the overview of the field. A large and important part of the study-phase consists in writing two obligatory assignments, where the student is expected to demonstrate skills obtained in the examinatoriums.

Language
This course is taught in Danish or English, depending on the lecturer.

Remarks
The course cannot be chosen by students who are not enrolled in BMB or Biomedicine

Course enrollment
See deadline of enrolment.

Tuition fees for single courses
See fees for single courses.