Graduate courses

Units: 1 unit
Grading basis: A-F grade basis
Course components: Lecture - Required
Pre-requisite enrollment requirement: College-level Biology
Description: Viral infections pose global threats to human and animal health with major socioeconomic impacts. Vaccines are the most cost-effective tool to combat viral infectious diseases. In this course, we will:

• Present the basic principles of vaccines 

• Introduce the representative vaccines for major viral diseases such as smallpox, polio, influenza, hepatitis B, human papillomavirus (HPV), Ebola, and COVID-19

• Present the stages and methods of vaccine development

• Highlight the challenges and the innovative research in vaccine development 

• Discuss the benefits and risks of vaccines

The overall goal of the course is to provide students with scientific knowledge of vaccines, foster students' interests in vaccine development, help students understand the basic concepts of virology and immunology, and prepare interested students for biomedical careers.

Target audience: graduate students, professional students, and senior undergraduate students who are interested in medical virology, immunology, and vaccines.

Units: 3 units
Grading basis: AFV - A-F or Audit
Course components: Lecture
Description: Prions are among the most mysterious pathogens known to science. Few other disease agents have confounded physicians, biologists, and chemists to the extent that prions have. In this course, we will learn about the fundamental characteristics of infectious prions, including how they become infectious and the particular diseases they are associated with. The entire field of prion biology is young and, because of this, scientists are making exciting and important discoveries that add to our understanding of infectious proteins. To appreciate how the scientific community arrived at the current state of knowledge about prions, we will revisit and challenge some of the basic assumptions and orthodoxies of biology.
Prerequisites: None

Units: 3 units
Grading basis: A-F grade basis
Course components: Lecture - Required
Enrollment requirement: CMB grad major
Description: This course is designed provide an introduction to the use of molecular methods in our understanding of the pathogenesis, etiology, and transmission of infectious diseases that are important to both animals and public health. This is intended as a hands-on course for the student to learn techniques related to genome sequencing, pangenome analysis, phylogenetic analysis, and metagenomic analysis, and then apply these techniques towards their own research.

Units: 2 units
Grading basis: Student option
Course components: Lecture - Required
Description: Components of a strong proposal. Grant submission process. What reviewers look for. How to locate grant announcements that match research interests.

Units: 3 units
Grading basis: A-F grade basis
Course components: Lecture - Required
Enrollment requirement: CMB grad major
Description: This course is a broad overview of the principles and methods of statistical analysis used in life sciences research, including biological, veterinary, and translational research, and provides the background a new researcher needs to understand and apply commonly used statistical methods and the preparation needed for more advanced coursework.

Classes will include general instruction and background information, detailed examples of how to perform the analyses, with actual data sets, and discussion on how the topic has been applied in biological research, including reading and assessing papers in the field. Computing will be performed using the R software environment, though students may use alternate software with permission.
Topics will include:

• Descriptive statistics and exploratory graphics
• Understanding statistical inference and interpreting P-values and confidence intervals.
• One and two sample inference, including t-tests, proportion tests, and non-parametric alternatives
• Linear regression, including the effects of confounders
• ANOVA methods, including pairwise comparisons and multiple comparisons

Offered: Spring
Instructors: Drs. Dawn Foster-Hartnett, James Johnson, and Timothy Johnson
Units: 3 credits
Prerequisites: Must be a sophomore, junior, senior, or graduate student
Course components: Lecture/Discussion, 11:45am-12:35pm, MWF
Course Attributes: Antibiotic resistance, globalization, societal and ethical implications, alternative therapeutic approaches
Description: This course provides an overview of how antibiotic use invoked antibiotic resistance, including in depth discussions of antibiotic resistant microorganisms and the impact of globalization on this exploding problem.

Units: 3 units
Grading nasis: Student option, no audit
Course components: Lecture - Required
Description: Spatial distribution of disease events. Exposures/outcomes. Factors that determine where diseases occur. Analyzing spatial disease data in public health, geography, epidemiology. Focuses on human/animal health related examples.
Prerequisites: Intro to epidemiology, statistics

Units: 1 unit
Grading basis: S - N only
Course components: Rotation - Required
Enrollment requirement: CMB grad major
Description: Current developments in faculty research. Topics specific to research adviser's area of interest. Eight weeks.
Prerequisite: CMB grad student

Units: 3 units
Grading basis: A - F only
Course components: Lecture - Required
Description: Multi-perspective introduction to scientific aspects of animal health and disease mechanisms with an emphasis on genetics and genomics, immunology and immunity, and infectious agents as they relate to food and companion animal species. Interactive lectures and student presentations provide key concepts, experimental methods, and logical processes that give context for the review and discussion of current scientific studies of health and disease including critical evaluation of journal articles.

Units: 3 units
Grading basis: A - F only
Course components: Discussion - Required; Lecture - Required
Enrollment requirement: Graduate student
Description: Disease processes in organ systems. Examples of animal models. Comparative medicine. Clinical relevance of problem/disease. Animal models used to study disease process/problem. Lectures.
Prerequisite: Enrollment in a biological sciences grad program or instructor consent

Units: 1 unit
Grading basis: S - N or Audit
Course components: Lecture - Required
Description: Student/faculty presentations of their own research or a directed topic.
Prerequisite: Biol sciences grad student

Units: 1 unit
Grading basis: S - N or Audit
Course components: Lecture - Required
Enrollment requirement: CMB grad major
Description: Current developments in cellular and molecular mechanisms of animal health and disease.

Units: 3
Grading basis: A-F or Audit
Course components: Lecture
Description: This course is a broad overview of the principles and techniques of research design and methods used in veterinary and translational research, and provides the background a new researcher needs to understand the literature and make good decisions about what is appropriate for their research.
Prerequisite: intro grad level stats course or it's equivalent