Biological Sciences

This course is intended to provide an introduction to basic concepts in virology and viral life cycles and to cover topics of various host responses induced by virus infection. Lectures will be focused on in-depth molecular mechanisms for propagation of pathogenic human and animal viruses and how viral infection can be controlled.

Prerequisite: Microbiology, Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Immunology (optional)

This course is designed to introduce bioinformatics to students of biology background. This course will cover an introduction, signature developments and breakthroughs, current and future emphasis of the field of bioinformatics. Working concept, underlying algorithms, and introduction to mainstream bioinformatics tools will also be covered. Computer programming (Linux and Perl) at a beginners level will also introduced. This course will be lecture-based with some hands-on experience. There will be homework projects assigned throughout the course.  

The most general function of our brain is to interact with our environment to obtain what we desire and to avoid what is disadvantageous. The brain plans and executes actions to accomplish this. Actions can be simple (e.g., picking up a pencil), effortful (e.g., endurance running), complex (e.g., dancing), or symbolic (e.g., stick up your thumb to get a ride). In all of these actions our brain is involved, but not to the same degree. Evolution has organized motor functions in a hierarchical system that delegates important motor and control functions to lower levels of the nervous system. This allows the brain to spend more time on other important functions, including the selection of goals and the planning of how to pursue them. Understanding of the neural mechanisms of decision making, action selection, action planning, and action execution has gained a lot from studying neural disorders (Parkinson's disease, orbitofrontal patients, obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.) which are considered in the course. Pre-requisites for this course include a course on biological foundations of behavior and a course on sensation and perception.

This course builds upon students' primary knowledge of the heart and circulation. Contemporary views of cardiac and vascular physiology are considered. The course develops students' understanding of cardiac and vascular function in relation to cellular mechanisms, with an emphasis on translating this to the human subject and the pathology of various cardiovascular diseases. Practical sessions give first-hand knowledge and experience of two techniques for assessing cardiovascular functions: blood pressure and organ bath pharmacology.

The course begins by discussing the evidence for the origins of the solar system, the emergence of life, and the conditions under which it emerged, and the origin of eukaryotic cells. The theory behind reconstructing trees of evolutionary relatedness is introduced and patterns of relatedness in the living world discussed, ranging from familiar creatures to new and bizarre forms being discovered in the depths of the oceans and under the earth’s surface. All main branches of life are covered with a particular focus on the evolution of plants and their importance to global biodiversity and on the many groups of invertebrates and vertebrates including ourselves. In addition to lectures, students attend practical sessions in the Grant Museum of Zoology. 

This course examines the dynamic nature of cells and the metabolic processes that occur in a regulated manner within cells. The lecture material is complemented by a graphics workshop, tutorials, laboratory practicals, and sessions that follow-up some of the practical classes. The course emphasizes that in order to understand biology it is first necessary to understand the basic unit of life: the cell. It is important not to view cells merely as the highly organized, static structures built up from lipids, proteins, and polysaccharides that seen in electron micrographs. Cells are, first and foremost, dynamic entities and students of this course examine the variety of cell units, biochemistry, and processes which make them so.