Biological Sciences

This course provides a survey of the role of plant-animal interactions in the evolution of biodiversity. It covers various subjects from an evolutionary approach and uses examples from recent and ongoing research. Topics include antagonistic and mutualistic types of plant-animal interactions; generalization versus specialization; evolutionary approaches to study plant-animal interaction, including understanding phylogenies; herbivory and grazing from both a plant and animal perspective; pollination ecology, especially plant-insect interactions; attractants and rewards; seed predation and dispersal; plant protection; arms race and co-evolution; physical and chemical plant defenses; plant-plant and other interactions; grazer-algae interactions in the marine environment; and community-level interactions including plants as habitat and food webs. The course consists of lectures and small in class exercises, hands-on activities, visits to the botanic gardens, and literature-based discussions. Training in scientific writing and oral and written communication skills is provided through workshops, journal clubs, an essay and an oral presentation. Students choose a plant-animal interaction and write an individual essay in the form of a scientific article (in review form) using primary literature.

This course offers a study of the components and response mechanisms of the immune system in physiological situations. It discusses clinical analysis in order to distinguish between health and disease states, including in hematology.

This course covers essential topics of whole-organism biology, introducing the theory and mechanisms of evolution and speciation, the fossil record and human evolution.

This course is a study of the complexity of our body, and it provides students with an introduction to the key concepts and issues that are central to modern developmental biology. 

This course studies infectious diseases in a multidisciplinary way with a global public health emphasis. The first part introduces basic knowledge of the disease processes and the human immune responses. The second part focuses on three types of viruses that cause zoonotic infectious diseases in the modern era: retroviruses (i.e., HIV/AIDS), influenza viruses (i.e., H5N1, H1N1, H7N9), and coronaviruses (i.e., SARS, MERS, COVID-19). The focus of the discussion is on the biology of host-pathogen interactions, the basic epidemiology of infectious diseases, and possible countermeasures, including disease surveillance and vaccine development. The importance of social determinants of infectious diseases is also reviewed. The global impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) will be explored in the third part of the course. Factors affecting drug use, both on macro and micro levels, are discussed and analyzed. The course ends by highlighting the "One Health" concept (i.e., human-animal-environment interfaces) in responding to zoonotic diseases and AMR.