Courses: Graduate Program

Pathology Time Schedule

Required Courses

PATH 501 - Pathology Proseminar
Course Director: Varies
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: AWSp (must complete 3 quarters)
Credits: 1, Graded

Small group discussions and presentations by students based on critical reading of original papers, or on concurrent seminars, in many areas of experimental pathology and medicine.Topics vary based on the instructor's preferences. 

Three seminar courses of this type (PATH 501 or equivalent) are required. A list of equivalent courses is below.

PATH 520 - Experimental Pathology Seminar
Course Director: Scott Kennedy and Eddie Fox
Prerequisite: None
Quarters Offered: AWSp
Credits: 1 Credit/No Credit
This is "Pathology Presents", the Pathology departmental seminar series.  All Pathology faculty, post-docs, and graduate students are encouraged to attend these seminars.  Pathology graduate students are required to register for PATH 520 every quarter until the quarter of the Final Defense.   To obtain credit for a quarter, you are required attend at least 50% of the seminars offered during that quarter.  If there is a sufficient reason why this is not possible for a given quarter, eg course schedule conflict, you can petition to the Program Director, Nick Crispe, for a waiver.  Attendance is monitored by online student-speaker evaluations.  There is no exam for this course. 
PATH 551 Lab Rotations
Course Director: Varies
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: AWSpSu
Credits: Up to 10, CR/NCR
Student is given a work area and a research project in the laboratory of a Pathology Graduate Faculty member.  At the end of the quarter, the student gives a formal 10 minute PowerPoint presentation of the project followed by a question/answer session then a group critique of presentation style.
PATH 600 - Independent Study or Research
Course Director: Varies
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: AWSpSu
Credits: Up to 10, CR/NCR
Register for PATH 600 for research prior to establishing your Thesis Supervisory Committee.  Register for enough credits to bring your total to 10 for A,W, and Sp quarters, and for 2 credits for Summer quarter.
PATH 800 - Doctoral Dissertation
Course Director: Varies
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: AWSpSu
Credits: Up to 10, CR/NCR
Register for PATH 800 for research after establishing your Thesis Supervisory Committee.  Register for enough credits to bring your total to 10 for A,W, and Sp quarters, and for 2 credits for Summer quarter.
UCONJ 510 Introductory Laboratory Based Biostatistics
Course Director: Lloyd Manci, PhD
Prerequisite:
Quarters Offered: S (A term only)
Credits: 2, Graded 

This course replaces BIOST 511 In 2012, the School of Medicine partnered with the SPHCM Department of Biostatistics to develop a new, joint course offering designed as a general course to meet biostatistics training needs.  The joint course will be offered again during Summer Quarter 2013.

Material in this course covers the principles of design and analysis for experiments, data description, confidence interval estimation, hypothesis testing, and correlation and simple linear regression.  Statistical techniques covered include two-sample and paired t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, nonparametric tests (Sign test, Mann-Whitney test), chi-square test, Fisher’s Exact test, correlation, and simple linear regression.  Demonstration of the methods using standard statistical software is provided.

Students can sign up for 2 credits for the UCONJ 510 course during the summer and continue their dissertation research without registering for the additional research credits. The only reason a student would need to register for more than 2 credits is if their academic program’s policies or the student’s visa status required it.


Path 501 Equivalent Seminar Courses

PATH 555 - Environmental Pathology
Course Director: Montine
Prerequisite: PATH410 or PATH444 or HUBIO520; recommended ENVH514 and ENVH515.
Quarters Offered: Even years as requested
Credits: 3
Graduate-level introduction to the interplay of basic science and clinical medicine. Covers inflammation, vascular disease, metabolic disorders, cancer biology, and molecular-, gene-, and cell-based therapies. Each topic introduced with a patient history.

PABIO 582 - Critical Thinking

Course Director: Lorenzo Giacani

This course analyzes  literature from the areas of interest of PABIO Faculty, principally defense against infection. The format is presentation and discussion of primary research papers, followed by the formulation and critical evaluation of hypotheses, leading to an outline of a research proposal to take the work further. Student numbers are limited and priority is given to students in the PABIO program, but other interested graduate students are welcome. 

IMM 538 - Immunologically Based Diseases and Treatments

Course Directors: Estelle Bettini and Ram Savan

This course addresses the mechanisms leading to the development of immunologically based diseases. In particular, it addresses in depth the genetic basis and deregulations of the innate and adaptive immune responses that lead to the development of autoimmune diseases. In addition, this course covers the immunological responses directed against specific infectious agents relevant for global health including Malaria, TB, HIV, HCV and ways to improve those responses. This course also approaches immunological mechanisms involved in chronic inflammation and cancer and describes the approaches to enhance Immunity to infectious agents and malignant cells

Course in development- Innate Immunity

Course Directors: Crispe/Smith

This will be a seminar course in which students will present, discuss and evaluate key papers in the area of innate immune recognition, innate immunopatholgogy and tissue repair.

CONJ 526- Intro to Systems Biology

Director: John Aitchison

john.aitchison@systemsbiology.org

The objective of this course is to introduce and develop skills and concepts necessary for comprehension and application of modern systems-biology approaches to research problems. Following an introduction to the philosophical underpinnings of systems biology, the course will focus on the tools of systems biology and their application to a central research problem, selected in part by the course participants. Each week will include a lecture followed by seminar discussions of editorials and peer-reviewed journal articles on systems biology tools, techniques, and methods. Discussions of the central research issues will emphasize the global applicability to other areas of biological inquiry.

MCB 539- Biological Basis of Neoplasia

Director: Valera Vasioukhin 

vvasiouk@fhcrc.org

This course allows students to gain experience in applying the several disciplines which comprise cellular and molecular biology toward a deeper understanding of a complex biological problem: neoplastic change. The course consists of a series of lectures and discussion meetings to introduce students to the major themes in research in the cellular and molecular biology of neoplastic change. They cover principal molecular mechanisms responsible for tumor initiation and progression, with a specific emphasis on intracellular signaling, DNA repair mechanisms, cell cycle checkpoints and loss of normal tissue homeostasis. The latest state of research in specific arrears of Cancer Biology will be presented by invited scientists, who are the experts in the relevant fields. The discussion meetings will concentrate on selected major papers in cancer biology and they will be presented and discussed by the students with the help and guidance of the instructors.

Other Recommended Courses

CONJ 531 - Signaling Mechanisms in Excitable Cells
Course Director: Hille
Prerequisite: Comprehensive undergraduate course in general biochemistry and molecular biology or permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: A
Credits: 1.5, Graded
Membrane electricity. Structure and roles of voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels in electrical signaling. Calcium as a second messenger. Exocytosis and its regulation. Phototransduction in photoreceptors.
CONJ 532 - Signal Transduction from the Cell Membrane to the Nucleus
Course Director: Beavo, Moon, Storm
Prerequisite: Basic knowledge of biochemistry
Quarters Offered: A
Credits: 1.5, Graded
Intracellular signaling pathways leading from cell membrane receptors to nucleus. Pathways activated by seven transmembrane receptors and G-proteins, insulin/PI3 kinase, nitric oxide and WNTs and mechanisms of signal termination. Cytokine/Jak/Stat signaling and role of subcellular localization in signal transduction.
PATH 514/CONJ514 - Molecular Medicine
Course Director: Rosen
Prerequisite: N/A
Quarters Offered: W
Credits: 3
Graduate-level introduction to the interplay of basic science and clinical medicine. Covers inflammation, vascular disease, metabolic disorders, cancer biology, and molecular-, gene-, and cell-based therapies. Each topic introduced with a patient history.
PATH 513 - Molecular Basis of Disease: Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration
Course Director: Keene
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: A
Credits: 1.5, Graded
Introduction to the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie neurodegenerative diseases, including introduction ot the normal development and anatomy of the central nervous system, a review of epidemioloogic, genetic, and clinical research tools used in the investigation of these diseases, and a systematic review of the major neurodegenerative diseases.
PATH 515 - Molecular Basis of Disease: Atherosclerosis and Myocardial Infarction
Course Director: Murry
Prerequisite: Permission of instructor
Quarters Offered: Spring of even-numbered years
Credits: 1.5, Graded
Introduces medically important diseases and experimental approaches to understanding the basis of diseases and their treatments. Covers artherosclerosis, including lipids, extracellular matrix, cell signaling, inflammation, and downstream complications such as myocardial infarction and arrhythmias.
PATH 517 - Biology and Pathology of Aging
Course Director: Kaeberlein
Prerequisite: Coursework in biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics
Quarters Offered: W even years (2016)
Credits: 3, Graded
Surveys the biology and pathologies of the aging phenomena in multiple species and at multiple organismal levels from whole animals to molecules.