Course syllabus
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Welcome to the course!
This course is divided into three main parts: Bacteriology (September 2nd - November 3rd), Immunology (September 16th - October 15th) and Virology (November 4th - January 19th). Below you can read about each part separately.
Registration is done online after you have activated your student account via https://www.uu.se/student. You can register from June 26th until September 1st at the latest. If you are unable to register, please send us an email to inf.biol.master@imbim.uu.se before the deadline has passed, and we can help you.
The course starts with a mandatory roll call and general introduction on September 2nd, at 11.15 in room B21 at the Biomedical Centre (BMC) campus.
You should only come to the roll call if you do not have any symptoms of illness, notify us as soon as possible by email if you cannot come.
To find your way please see find your way at BMC
Course schedule can be found at 3MK000 HT24 schedule
We plan for on campus teaching. It is anyhow important that you activate your Zoom-account and download the Zoom-client for the course as soon as possible, since parts of the course might be given remotely.
See Zoom for Students for instructions.
A warm welcome to the course!
Diarmaid, Maria and Tanel (Head teachers, responsible for the course content)
Susanne & Sofie (Programme director and Course administrator)
Course layout
Bacteriology Part
This course is intended to give to an overview of bacteriology as it relates to infection biology. We will cover many different subjects including the basic biology of several important bacterial species and their mechanisms of pathogenesis, a variety of gene mechanisms regulating gene expression, mechanisms of genetic change (mutation and horizontal transfer), the acquisition and expression of virulence factors, bacterial responses to different environments, basic aspects of bacterial evolution and phylogenetic relationships, the importance and variety of the human microbiota, animal models for in vivo infection studies, and molecular, physical, and genetic techniques currently in use in the field of bacterial infection biology.
The course will consist of lectures (hopefully you can attend in person but PDFs will be available online if you cannot), seminars (where you will read and discuss relevant research papers in small groups), and wet labs (where you will get practical experience and theory in a variety of simple techniques that illustrate relevant aspects of bacteriology).
Attendance at seminars and labs is compulsory.
The recommended course literature is:
- Medical Microbiology, 9th edition, by Murray, Rosenthal & Pfaller (Elsevier).
- Bacterial Pathogenesis, 4th edition, by Wilson, Winkler & Ho (ASM Press).
If you do not already have a strong background in bacterial genetics or molecular microbiology then you are strongly advised to read in these areas (for example, Bacterial Pathogenesis or some similar book) before the course begins.
You do not have to buy either of these books – the materials supplied (lecture PDFs, seminar papers, lab manual) will cover all of the material examined on the course. However, the books provide additional material and another perspective and having them for reference or careful reading will benefit you.
Immunology Part
The Immunology part of the course is intended to provide a basal overview of the immune system for all students at the master program in infection biology. From previous courses, we know that the class will differ in their background immunology knowledge. For some the immunology part will mean repetition of basic immunology, and for those that barely had immunology before, this part of the course may be quite challenging. The aim is to make sure that all students have a solid basic knowledge in immunology so that they can relate and understand the immune response caused by pathogens and infections discussed in later courses at the programme.
The immunology part will be distributed in time from September 16th to the final written exam on October 15th, and within this time the bacteriology part will be running in parallel. The basic immunology part will be covered by lectures on antibodies, B - and T cell development and activation and memory responses, antigen presentation, regulation of immune responses, and innate immunity. A multiple-choice test will be provided a couple of weeks before the real exam to let the students test their level of immunology knowledge before the last preparation time in front of the final exam.
Recommended course literature is:
-
Kuby immunology, 9th Edition, by Punt, Stranford, Jones, & Owen, (Macmillan Education).
However, any other basic immunology book may be used.
Virology Part
The Virology part of the course is intended to provide a general overview of the Molecular Virology. We will cover basic virology, molecular virology as well as we will touch a little bit of clinical virology topics. The aim is to give the students a good overview of Molecular Virology with a hope that this knowledge will be very useful during the later courses/lab practicals at the Master Program to better understand viral pathogenesis and anti-viral therapy.
The Virology part will involve 5 seminars, 4 weeks of EXTENSIVE lectures, and most importantly - 2 weeks of unique and personal hands-on lab work under supervision of experienced scientists at Uppsala University, SLU, SVA.
Recommended course literature:
Main books:
- "Fundamentals of Molecular Virology" (FMV), 2nd Edition, by Nicholas H. Acheson
- "Medical Microbiology" (MM), 9th Edition, by Murray et al.
Recommended books:
- "Principles of Virology", 5th Edition, by Flint et al.,
- "Virology: Molecular biology and pathogenesis" by Leonard Norkin.
Relevant research reports and review articles. The PDF handouts from each lecture will be available at Studium (Modules/Virology/) 48h before the respective lecture.
Exams
There are three digital written exams on the course and they will be held:
Immunology - 2024-10-15 (Dugga 2024-10-07)
Bacteriology - 2024-11-01
Virology - 2024-12-20
You need to register for the exams at least 12 days beforehand. You will be able to see the registration periods and do the registrations in Ladok for Students.
Re-exams will be held:
Immunology - January 3rd 2025
Bacteriology - January 7th 2025
Virology - August 2025
Information - digital examination
Support for disabilities at UU
If you need to apply for special support, please do so as soon as possible after starting the course and notify the course administration when you register for the exam.
Registered students can find the course content under Modules.