Biological Sciences

This hybrid course combines the fields of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Global Public Health to look into infectious diseases that have caused pandemics in the past decades. The topics discussed in Infectious Disease Epidemiology include history, basic epidemiological concepts and terminology, descriptive epidemiology, the epidemiologic triad model, and vaccine efficacy and effectiveness. Global Public Health topics include social and political determinants of health, public health policies, laws and ethics, international cooperation in health emergencies, and also the One Health concept. The hybrid nature of the course is realized through three viruses that have caused major zoonotic/infectious disease outbreaks, which are retroviruses (i.e., HIV/AIDS), influenza viruses (i.e., H5N1, H1N1, H7N9), and coronaviruses (i.e., SARS, MERS, COVID-19). The global impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is explored in the third part of the course. Factors affecting antibiotic 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 threats, both now and in the future.

This course looks at what we know about healthy brains - how the brain is structured, the different types of brain cells, localization of function and neurochemistry of different brain areas, communication within the brain, and how we investigate it. It also looks at dysfunction in relation to vision, hearing, movement, memory, thinking, emotion, and behavior. Students learn about the world class research that takes place within the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences and its constituent parts: the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, the Division of Psychiatry, the Institutes of Ophthalmology and Neurology and the Ear Institute.

This course looks at the brain: what it does and how it does it. It takes students on a journey through contemporary neuroscience. What do we know about how the brain enables you to feel, see, move, experience emotions, and have thoughts and memories? What do we still need to know, and what happens when the brain starts to go wrong? 

This course provides an introduction to modern evolutionary biology, covering the origin of hereditary variation, natural selection, the origin of species, methods of phylogeny construction, major evolutionary events, and coevolution. Examples are drawn from all major taxa; molecular, cellular, morphological, and behavioral evolution are considered. 

This course introduces the entire biostatistical data analysis workflow in public health, from data management to data analysis and the interpretation of results, translating data into reliable and consumable information for knowledge discovery in public health. Particular emphasis is placed on the application of regression models in public health without the mathematical details and the proficiency in using statistical software to perform data analysis, integrating biostatistics, computer applications and public health for improving the health of mankind.

This course introduces students to the physiological basis for requirements for energy, macronutrients and micronutrients, causes and consequences ofvitamin and mineral deficiency, current dietary guidelines for the UK.