Curriculum in the MS-IDGH Program

The course provides a body system-based overview of infectious agents of the respiratory, gastrointestinal and urogenital Tracts. This course also covers disease ecology. For each body system-focused module, normal anatomy and physiology are first reviewed. Model bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic pathogens that cause disease domestically and/or globally are then covered. These lecture focus on pathogenesis, epidemiology, host immune and inflammatory responses, prevention (vaccines), diagnosis and control of the infectious agents. The focus is on human infectious agents, but some animal pathogens are covered too. The Disease Ecology component focuses on species and population interactions and environmental aspects that influence the patterns of disease. Students are assessed by different methods including PowerPoint presentations and exams.

This course teaches the principles of immunology and then applies them to understand immune responses against intracellular and extracellular infectious agents, immunotherapies, immunodiagnostics and hypersensitivity and autoimmunity disorders/diseases. In addition, the course examines (a) how the immune system can be manipulated in order to benefit the host, (b) how knowledge of the immune response against an infectious agent is applied to designing and developing effective vaccines, and (c) what are the vaccine-delivery strategies and challenges and obstacles in developing effective vaccines. Students are assessed by participation in conference sessions to discuss problems and research papers, research paper PowerPoint presentations and exams.

Students will learn theoretical basis and practical application of a variety of immunological and microbiological techniques commonly used in research, clinical diagnosis of diseases, epidemiology, and development of diagnostics, therapy and vaccine. Specifically, students will learn how to utilize ELISA to determine antibody responses, immunofluorescence to identify a pathogen, flow cytometry to characterize lymphocyte subset responses, gel electrophoresis to determine purity of a protein, cell culture to test toxin-neutralizing ability of an antibody, etc. A few of the techniques are organized to give students a research work-like experience (on a small scale) on how to test and evaluate an antibody molecule with the aim of developing a human monoclonal antibody-based prophylaxis or therapy against a toxin-mediated disease. Students are assessed by different methods including written manuscript-style lab reports and exams.

Introductory statistics will be learned using an active approach, emphasizing practical applications of statistical concepts. Students will gain experience in analyzing data sets and presenting data. In addition, students will become familiar with using specialized programs for more advanced statistics, such as SPSS. Laptop computers are required. Students are assessed by different methods including homework assignments, exams and online quizzes.

This course introduces students to the ethical issues, professional standards, and norms of ethical infectious disease research, from laboratory research to research out in communities. Students will learn the ethical standards and norms in biomedical research, institutional procedures and policies governing research with animal and human subjects, standards of practices for designing ethical research studies, and ethical issues in infectious disease control. This class is designed as an online course with taking modules on CITI Program Cross-listed with BMS 654.

Students present (PowerPoint) peer-reviewed research papers (not review articles) on infectious agents/diseases. Papers cover diverse aspects of infectious diseases and are chosen via consultation with students’ individual faculty mentors and the course director. Students are required to thoroughly study their selected articles before Journal Club. The sessions help students enhance the skills of analytical reading and critique. The focus is on critical analysis of the results/data, evaluation of the scientific merit of the paper, stimulating class discussion of the paper and related literature, articulating the paper’s strengths and weaknesses, and presenting the paper in a systematic fashion. As this exercise is also meant for the presenter to teach classmates regarding the research topic, students learn to present the information in a clear, coherent, and accurate manner. Students take Journal Club in both the Fall and Spring semesters. Journal Club is open to everyone in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health to attend and participate in the discussion.

Many speak of “global health,” and yet what does that term mean for an individual, for a community, for a nation, for a planet? One group of physicians and public health professionals developed this definition: Global health is an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide. Global health emphasizes transnational health issues, determinants, and solutions; involves many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration, and is a synthesis of population-based prevention with individual-level clinical care. (Koplan JP et al. Lancet. 2009, 373:1993-1995). The definition of global health we will adopt for this course reflects the need for increasingly complex, trans- and multidisciplinary (One Health) approaches to understanding health and disease in populations, brought about by an increasingly interconnected world. The goal of this course is to provide students with an overview of global health and equip students with the proper framework, context, and skills to understand and analyze the social, political, legal, policy, and economic aspects of health and disease on a global scale.

See description under Fall semester

The course provides a system-based overview of infectious agents of the nervous system, skin, and blood (including the reticuloendothelial system). This course also provides basic understanding of food safety and regulatory compliance. It is subdivided in 5 modules. Four modules are focused on pathogens and the various diseases they cause. An additional module focuses on food safety. The introductory lecture for each infectious disease module describes the anatomical and physiological features of relevant organs. Model bacterial, viral, fungal and parasitic pathogens that cause disease domestically and/or globally are covered in depth. The etiology, pathogenesis, immunology, epidemiology, diagnosis, prevention and control of selected pathogens are discussed. Reading of relevant scientific literature complements the lectures. The food safety module introduces students to local, state and federal regulatory agencies, regulations, and surveillance systems relevant to food safety. Transmission and risk assessment of foodborne pathogens are discussed. Students will also learn about new food safety challenges related to trade, climate change and antimicrobial resistance. Students are assessed by different methods including exams.

The first part of the course covers basic topics of molecular biology relevant to the understanding of viral, bacterial, and protozoal microorganisms. Following an overview of the structure and function of nucleic acids, prokaryotic and eukaryotic gene expression and regulation will be discussed. The second part of the course is devoted to applied topics in molecular biology, including genetically modified organisms, genotyping methods, medical molecular biology, high-throughput sequencing and its application to genomics, and the analysis of complex bacterial populations. An introduction to computational methods for analyzing complex sequence data and their application to studying host-associated microbial populations and their impact on health and disease complete the course. Students are assessed by different methods including exams.

Students will learn the rigors of animal model work in research, which requires taking care of animals on weekends and holidays. They will use mouse model to investigate immunoprophylactic potential of Shiga toxin 2 (Stx2)-specific human monoclonal antibody (HuMAb) 5C12 against a challenge with Stx2. Students will learn to perform mouse handling, intraperitoneal injections and humane euthanasia of mice and disposal of carcass and observe clinical signs. They will learn to observe and record clinical signs of the disease, interpret data/results, prepare graphs and write a manuscript-style report. Students are assessed by different methods including participation and a written lab report.

The goal of this course is to provide students with hands-on experience in molecular biology procedures. Having first established good laboratory technique (to encompass safety and regulatory issues), students have the opportunity to learn a variety of molecular methods including DNA isolation, digestion and cloning, bacterial transformation, evaluation of recombinant clones, and plasmid isolation. Students engage in primer design, gel electrophoresis, PCR (including quantitative real-time PCR), DNA barcoding, and sequence annotation. Basic bioinformatic skills are explored. Recombinant protein expression systems are compared (eukaryotic versus prokaryotic) and various recombinant protein expression and purification techniques (e.g., column chromatography and affinity methods) are tested. Science writing skills that focus upon clarity, precision, and comprehension of experimental results and conclusions are emphasized. Students gain a firm understanding of how the molecular biology techniques employed in this class are used to diagnose, identify, and study infectious diseases. Students are assessed by various methods including written lab reports and exams.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic highlighted the human suffering and loss of life, economic devastation, and social disruption that results if zoonotic viral spillover is not detected early and reduced, and disease amplification and spread in human populations is not contained. There is a need therefore to critically analyze Infectious diseases that threaten global health and insecurity, their relation to poverty and development, and how economic level, inequity, and policies of nations determines the health of their citizens. Using the lens of infectious diseases covered in previous courses, we will examine the historical milestones, actors, assumptions, context, and theories driving selected infectious diseases and their global health priorities in policy, programs, and research. A recurring theme throughout the course is that there are common global drivers of infectious disease emergence and re-emergence influencing the health of populations in high, middle, and low-income countries, that cross-cutting issues of inequality and systems transcend settings. The course will also examine the outcomes resulting from the ways in which new global health policies change patterns of health practice and Infectious disease intervention globally. Our students will come out with an understanding of major challenges and solutions to infectious diseases of global health significance, programs, and policies and be able to address global health issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, examine strategies and solutions for combating emergence, and re-emergence of pandemics and promoting Global Health threats. This course is a reminder that no one person, agency, or organization holds absolute knowledge on how best to address Infectious disease and Global Health challenges and that it has to be a multidisciplinary effort. Students are assessed by oral presentations and written assignments.

Bioterrorism is the use of pathogens and toxins as weapons targeting humans or economically important animals and plants. Biodefense is a subset of public health that responds to the threat of bioterrorism. This course seeks to provide the basis for (1) critically evaluating the risks associated with bioterrorism and (2) developing strategies for defending against, as well as responding to, the illegitimate use of biological agents. Lectures and readings provide key concepts in the biology of infection, modes of surveillance, national response infrastructure, and the dual use potential of synthetic biology. Accordingly, the course content applies to general infectious disease epidemiology. Students are assessed by weekly writing assignments as well as by a final take home examination that emphasizes synthesis and epidemiologic concepts.

The course focuses on computational methods to analyze DNA and amino acid sequences. Four hours are devoted to lectures, and each lecture introduces a topic. Following each lecture, students are guided through a hands-on computational analysis to practice the concepts presented in the lecture. Students learn to recognize various file formats, query and compare sequences, and apply programs to extract biological information from complex sequence data. The goal of the course is to demystify the analysis of sequence data and to provide basic familiarity with bioinformatics tools commonly used in this field. After completing the course, students will be able to: (1) recognize the most common sequences formats used to represent DNA sequence data: FASTA, FASTQ, BAM, SAM, BIOM; (2) employ program BioEdit and MEGA to explore and manipulate DNA and amino acid sequences. Examples of sequence manipulations include aligning, trimming, translating, defining consensus sequences and building phylogenies; (3) demonstrate ability to perform and interpret BLAST queries; (4) understand the principles of transcriptomic analysis using RNA-Seq (5) demonstrate the use of programs found in galaxy to analyze transcriptomics and metagenomic data (6) apply a 16S amplicon sequence workflow to explore complex microbial populations. Students are assessed by homework assignments and an exam using bioinformatics software.

Biotechnology is “the application of biological organisms, systems, or processes by various industries to develop technologies and products that help improve our lives and the health of our planet. Students explore biotechnology applications, particularly those technologies of relevance to infectious disease and learn how the technologies were developed, how they are being applied to global health issues, and how they are likely to evolve in the future. As part of the course, students are asked to select biotechnologies they feel will be important to their personal career objectives, investigate these in depth, and present their findings and views to the class, followed by general discussion. After completion of the course, students will be able to: (1) improve their appreciation of the biotech industry; (2) provide basic knowledge of the technologies underpinning biotech; (3) provide insight into what is involved in starting and building a successful biotech company; (4) gain detailed knowledge in at least one aspect of biotech that is particularly relevant to one’s career goals. Students are assessed by their presentations on a biotechnology topic.

This course has two major components. Working with their mentors, students (1) develop and write a research assignment, and (2) prepare and present a poster on the written assignment. Each student investigates and understand in-depth a particular pathogen. The assignment includes a comprehensive literature survey on different aspects of the pathogen, identifying a total of at least 3-5 needs, gaps in knowledge and/or questions that need to be answered, and outlining an experimental plan to address one of the needs/knowledge gaps/unanswered questions surrounding that pathogen. Students get the opportunity to work and think independently, read and critically analyze scientific literature, develop oral and written communication skills, and appreciate the research process. Students write their 6 page research assignments and submit them for evaluation. Students also present their research assignments as posters on MS-IDGH poster presentation day (campus-wide). Mentors of each student provides guidance as needed. Students devote 11 weeks to preparing and writing their assignments, preparing posters, and presenting them. Students are assessed by meeting timelines, written research assignment and poster presentation.

Students learn and apply basic concepts of epidemiology. Epidemiology is the lynchpin science of public health. In combination with biostatistics, it is used to examine disease patterns and infers causes of diseases at population level and many other issues, such as whether a new drug is more effective than an old one, what the risk factors are for a given outcome, whether a new screening test is likely to be useful and, if so, in which population, what levels and types of air and water pollution should be of most concern, etc. To accomplish its varied objectives, epidemiology uses many different kinds of measures, study designs, and data analytic techniques. Students will (1) understand the basic structure of public health, its goals, and where epidemiology fits into the structure; (2) know how to calculate and interpret important rates and measures used in epidemiology and public health and how to interpret confidence intervals for these rates and measures; (3) interpret basic epidemic curves; (4) understand in general the design, strengths, weaknesses, and ethical issues of the major types of epidemiologic studies; (5) identify the three major causes of erroneous conclusions in epidemiologic research and how each one can be adjusted for or avoided; (6) recognize effect modification (also called interaction) in data; (7) learn how screening is employed in public health, including the basic measurements used to evaluate screening tests and the biases that can affect the accuracy of reported screening efficacy. Students are assessed by various methods including homework and exams.

This 15-hour course will illuminate the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the evolving infectious disease pandemics, as illustration of the relationships between disease biology, society, and public policy. We will explore the history, changing trends, recent advances, and multidisciplinary strategies for addressing HIV, Ebola, Dengue, Polio, Tuberculosis, and COVID-19. We will examine gender relations; poverty; stigma and discrimination; vulnerable populations; as well as global responses, from patient activism to ‘global health’ interventions. This course will build upon the introductory course in Global Health and course on Infectious Diseases in Global Health, but with a greater focus on social issues surrounding the pandemics, lived experiences of disease, the interactions between biology and social factors, and the political architectures of responses. The course will include lectures and documentaries, interactive classroom activities and discussions, and presentations. Students are assessed by various methods.