The Outline of Infections and Immune Response

1. Basic Teaching Information

2. Course Introduction（no more than 500 words）

    Pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites, can cause severe health issues, and negative impacts on economic growth as well as social stability. This underscores the need for knowledge of infection mechanisms and their outcomes. Infections and Immune Response intends to introduce students in medical sciences, life sciences or other related disciplines to the variety of infections and immune responses in humans.

    Weekly meetings will cover both classic and newly emerged infectious agents and diseases, including HBV, HIV, HPV, Helicobacter pylori, malaria, schistosomiasis, Cryptosporidium and Cestode infection. Lectures will be given by experts in these areas from Wuhan University, Baruch S. Blumberg Institute (US), National Institutes of Health (US), Natural History Museum (UK) and Rush University Medical Center (US).

    This course focuses on infectious agents and interactions with host immune responses and anti-infectives at the cellular and molecular level. It consists of three main sections. (1) Viral infections: areas covered include structure of pathogens, viral life cycle, pathogenesis and host immune responses, diagnosis and treatments. Topics will be selected to present important concepts in the context of infections or co-infections and host immune responses and/or major challenges in controlling infections. Recent advances in understanding virus-host interactions, host responses to infections, global control strategies and elimination strategies will be emphasized. (2) Bacterial infections: Helicobacter pylori will be considered as specific examples, and how does Helicobacter pylori infect digestive tract and modulate the composition of gastrointestinal microbiota will be discussed. (3) Parasitic diseases: this course will systematically introduce the mechanisms of infection, immune evasion strategies and pathogenesis. More insight will be given into parasite-host interactions, epigenetic gene regulation, and immune responses to parasites. The global challenges in the field of treatment and control strategies will be also discussed.

3. The Allocation of Content and Lecture Hours

4. Assessment Methods and Marking Criterion

Assessment 1 - Comprehensive evaluation
Weighting: 60%
Criterion: attendance and class performance (quizzes or online discussions)

Assessment 2 - Essay in the interplay between host and pathogen
Weighting: 40%
Length: no less than 1000 words

5. Textbooks and References

·         Principles of Molecular Virology, Alan J. Cann, 6th Edition, 2015

·         Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, John E. Bennett, Raphael Dolin and Martin J. Blaser, 8th Edition, 2015

·         Medical Immunology, Gabriel Virella, 7th Edition, 2020

·         Primary literature