MEDS 360 Current Research Approaches to Biomedical Problems

Prerequisites: BISC 220L or BISC 221L, and CHEM 103 or 105. Faculty Instructor: Omid Akbari, Ph.D., with guest lecturers from Keck School research faculty Contact information and Office hours: [email protected], 323 442 7930, Thursday 10-12 AM, by appointment, or by e-mail Blackboard link: TBA Introduction and purpose: Because of the striking advances in contemporary biomedical research, students who plan to have a career in this exciting new area will need to access a broader range of concepts and skills. The modern biomedical scientist uses a wide array of advanced techniques, ranging from special measuring instruments, novel imaging systems, computer methods, and quantitative analytical tools and models. Current Research Approaches in Biomedical Science will provide a theoretical foundation of a range of laboratory approaches that help the biomedical or physician scientist to understand a disease. This includes genetic and system biology approaches to understand our immune system in health and disease. Course Requirements and Grades  The student will have free access to the most recent and relevant original reviews and papers in the literature through OVID, as recommended by each lecturer for each session. One review article and one peer-reviewed publication will be required for each lecture. These articles will be updated annually to keep current. Beside those materials a copy of lecture slides will be provided to the students. The course will consist of one meeting each week, which will consist of 2, 50 minute presentations.  Attendance is expected as much of the material is lecture-based. While recognizing that there may be illness, personal emergencies or religious holiday observances, unexcused absences may result in a reduced overall course grade. Excused absences for examinations may be obtained for illness, personal emergencies or religious holidays by calling the course director before the date of the absence. Excused absences from exams may be made up.

 Examinations: will be in short answer, short essay format o Midterm Exam: 40% of course grade o Final Exam: 60% of course grade  Grading Scale: o A - 85-100%; o B – 75-84%; o C – 65-74%; o D – 55-64%; o F – 0-54% Class Sessions

1 Lecture Title Topics 26 Aug Introduction to new approaches in biomedical science Omid Akbari 9 Sept New approaches to understand our immune system, Flow Omid Akbari cytometry 16 Sept Emerging pathogens in a changing world Pinghui Feng 23 Sept The Human Ecosystem: Microbiota in Health and Disease William De Paolo 30 sept Identification of new targets for therapeutics approaches Omid Akbari

7 Oct New approaches to diagnose and treat cancer Ite Laird--Offringa 14 Oct New Approaches to understand Stem cells and Gregor Adams regenerative Medicine 21 Oct Mid term exam

28 Oct Genetic approaches to understand diseases Hooman Allayee 4 Nov Animal models of disease Hooman Allayee 11 Nov bioinformatics Ha Youn Lee 18 Nov Epigenetics and human disease Ite Laird--Offringa 25 Nov Proteomics in health and disease Ebi Zandi 2 Dec System biology: a new perspective in biology Ha Youn Lee 16 Dec FINAL EXAM 2-4 PM

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