Course details

General
FacultyHealth Sciences
DepartmentMedicine
Education levelPostgraduate / Master of Science
Course codeE5Semester2
Course titleAdvance techniques in Medical Research
Independent teaching activitiesHours per weekECTS
Lectures1
Practice3
Total44
CoursetypeGeneral setting course, skills development
Prerequisite coursesNone
Teaching and assessment languageEnglish

Learning outcomes

Description

How a wild thought leads to a Nobel nomination?

How an idea that has been criticized as crazy changed science as we know it?

In the course of lectures on ‘Advanced Techniques in medical research,’ we will present the laureates of six Nobel prices in Physiology and Medicine from 2000 onwards. We will discuss how a medical need can serve as inspiration for scientific research and can lead to knowledge used for medical evolution and cure or prevention of human diseases.

We included in the lecture series aspects that helped scientists to understand functioning of the body, diagnosis of diseases and treatment discoveries.

We will present the Nobel prices from the conception of the idea to bench work and to clinical/research use, using power point presentations, videos and nomination speeches.

The assessment of the course will be through assignments that the students will present during the last week of the program.

The major thing in science is getting inspiration by humanity needs and this is the purpose of our course.

Knowledge

Upon completion of the course, the graduate students will be familiar with the basics of modern methods of biomedical sciences:

  • Recent advances in immunology
  • Tissue engineering
  • Analytical biochemistry, behavioral methods, biological model, techniques in medicine considers
  • Methods or procedures that are used in science or practice of the diagnosis and prevention of disease or disorder
  • Structural and functional genomics, biomedicine, molecular enzymology, and molecular immunology, manipulation and analysis of DNA, RNA, protein, and lipid
Skills

The course participants upon completion will be able to:

  • Embark on a research project within a working laboratory at Biomedical Research
  • Be familiar with the most innovative techniques used in clinical research laboratories
  • Be provided by an excellent tool for understanding new concepts
  • Write up a qualitative research protocol

Course contents

  1. Optogenetics
  2. Tissue engineering
  3. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018: Allison and Honjo:”Cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”
  4. Characterization and counting of dopaminergic synapses in neurodegenerating diseases (i.e. SMA)
  5. Proteomics
  6. Next Generation Sequencing

Teaching and learning methods – evaluation

Teaching methodsFace to face
Distance learning
Use of information and
communication technologies (ICT)

  • Use of ICT in Teaching- Moodle Virtual learning environment (VLE)
    (asynchronous learning, wikis, Online Discussion Fora, Educational Portfolio, assignment submission, assessment process)

  • Use of ICT in Communication with students
    (email, instant messaging via Moodle)

Module structureWork Hours per SemesterActivity
Lectures 30
Exercises (Quiz) 5
Exercises (Wikis) 5
Exercises (Online discussion fora) 10
Exercises (Study relevant papers) 20
Essay background work40
Essay writing15
Overall work for the course125
Assessment Methods
  • Written assignment, in English, approximately 2,500 words long, to be submitted by each student at the end of the course

  • Weekly quizes, with multiple choice questions


Recommended Bibliography

  1. Sharples SA, Koblinger K, Humphreys JM, Whelan PJ. Dopamine: a parallel pathway for the modulation of spinal locomotor networks. Frontiers in Neural Circuits. 2014;8:55. doi:10.3389/fncir.2014.00055.
  2. Le TT, Pham LT, Butchbach ME, Zhang HL, Monani UR, Coovert DD, Gavrilina TO, Xing L, Bassell GJ, Burghes AH. (2005) SMNDelta7, the major product of the centromeric survival motor neuron (SMN2) gene, extends survival in mice with spinal muscular atrophy and associates with full-length SMN. Hum. Mol. Genet. 14, 845-857.
  3. Kosmidis EK, Contoyiannis YF Papatheodoropoulos C,. Diakonos FK: Traits of criticality in membrane potential fluctuations of pyramidal neurons in the CA1 region of rat hippocampus. Eur J Neurosci. 2018; 48:2343–2353.
  4. Bousnaki M, Bakopoulou A, Papadogianni D, Barkoula NM, Alpantaki K, Kritis A, Chatzinikolaidou M, Koidis P.: Fibro/chondrogenic differentiation of dental stem cells into chitosan/alginate scaffolds towards temporomandibular joint disc regeneration. Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine (2018) 29:97 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10856-018-6109-6.