The University of Alabama 3 credits BSC
A graduate level seminar on current topics related to use of animal model systems, as they pertains to the molecular basis of human disease. This course is designed to expose students to recent research in a variety of diseases. The instructor and students will give lectures that provide a general survey of current disease research topics. During each class, a student will give an introduction on the particular disease being discussed that week. This introduction usually contains some basic information about the disease (e.g. symptoms, incidence rate, diagnosis and prognosis) as well as the known and unknown aspects of what causes the disease. Detailed student presentations will then follow on specific and recent literature within that topic with a focus on molecular mechanisms. This is designed to foster interactive class discussion and to strengthen the analytical and presentation skills of graduate students in cell and molecular biology. Emphasis on critical thinking and evaluation of scientific approaches and application of methods will be a major component of this course. In addition to the presentation of a disease topic and participation of the course in each class, as a final assignment, students will be asked to write a "News and Views" type "preview" article on a recent or in-press article related to human disease modeling. If demonstrating appropriate scholarly value, select articles might be revised under the supervision of the instructor and then submitted for publication to an appropriate journal, such as Disease Models and Mechanisms or the Journal of Neuroscience. Specific guidelines for this assignment are provided. Assessment of student progress in terms of pre-test/post-test, written critiques of presentations and writing assignments will be provided. Following each class, Dr. Caldwell will provide immediate feedback on their presentation and suggest areas for improvement. Outline of Course Topics: 1) the molecular basis of select diseases 2) strengths/weaknesses of specific animal model systems (worms, flies, mice, zebrafish) 3) role of genetic, cellular, and molecular processes in disease 4) application of model systems toward therapeutic development.
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