Program Overview

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Program Overview

The Medical Bacteriology course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the field, focusing on the specific traits that enable certain bacteria to cause disease. The course covers various themes, including the structure of bacterial cells and viruses, host-pathogen interactions, molecular mechanisms for bacterial pathogenesis, and strategies for controlling microbial diseases.

Course Content

The course is organized into the following themes:

• Structure of bacterial cells and viruses, physiology, and evolution
• Host-pathogen interactions
• Molecular mechanisms for bacterial pathogenesis and infection, including biofilm formation
• Strategies for control of microbial diseases
• Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling in the treatment of bacterial infections
• Epidemiology
• Antibiotic resistance and the spread of resistance
• New strategies for antimicrobial development
• Introduction to the most important infectious diseases, including respiratory, gastrointestinal tract, and urinary tract infections, their causative organisms, routes of infection, and epidemiology

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, students will:

• Understand how the structure, growth physiology, biochemistry, and genetics of microorganisms contribute to their ability to evade host defense mechanisms and cause disease
• Be familiar with the most important infectious diseases
• Have a basic knowledge of how bacterial infections are treated
• Be able to critically read original research articles in the field
• Understand, interpret, evaluate, and convey data from scientific experiments presented in these articles
• Understand the mechanisms behind bacteria and viruses' ability to cause disease
• Be able to correlate the symptoms of common infectious diseases with putative pathogenic microorganisms
• Engage in discussions of the pros and cons of present treatments of infectious diseases
• Discuss new approaches to the treatment of infectious diseases

Teaching and Learning Methods

The course will include lectures, group discussions based on problems presented to the students, mandatory student presentations of research papers, and guest teachers from the Region's Hospitals and Statens Serum Institut.

Literature

Literature for the course can be found on Absalon.

Recommended Prerequisites

Academic qualifications equivalent to a BSc degree are recommended.

Assessment

The course assessment includes:

• An on-site written exam (4 hours under invigilation)
• Mandatory student presentation of research papers
• Continuous feedback during the course of the semester

Exam Details

• The on-site written exam is an ITX exam.
• All aids are allowed except Generative AI and internet access.
• The University will provide computers for the ITX exam.
• Students are not permitted to bring digital aids like computers, tablets, calculators, or mobile phones.
• Books, notes, and similar materials can be brought in paper form or uploaded before the exam and accessed digitally from the ITX computer.

Marking Scale

The course uses a 7-point grading scale.

Censorship Form

The course has external censorship.

Re-exam

The re-exam will be the same as the ordinary exam. If ten or fewer students have signed up for the re-exam, the type of assessment will be changed to an oral examination (20 minutes) with preparation time (20 minutes) and all aids.

Criteria for Exam Assessment

To obtain the grade 12, the student should convincingly and accurately demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and competences described under the learning outcomes.

Course Type

The course is a single subject course (day).

Workload

The workload for the course includes:

• Lectures: 48 hours
• Class Instruction: 24 hours
• Preparation: 106 hours
• Seminar: 24 hours
• Exam: 4 hours
• Total: 206 hours

Language

The course is taught in English.

Course Number

The course number is NBIK14035U.

ECTS

The course is worth 7.5 ECTS.

Programme Level

The course is at the full degree master level.

Duration

The course is 1 block.

Placement

The course is placed in block 3.

Schedule Group

The course is in schedule group B.

Capacity

The course has a capacity of 50 students. The number of places might be reduced if you register in the late-registration period or as a credit or single subject student.

Study Board

The study board for the course is the Study Board for the Biological Area.

Contracting Department

The contracting department is the Department of Biology.

Contracting Faculty

The contracting faculty is the Faculty of Science.

Course Coordinator

The course coordinator is Anders Løbner-Olesen.