PATHOLOGY (PATH)

Open to all undergraduates. An overview of basic human molecular and cellular biology in the setting of common human diseases. The course emphasizes how an understanding of disease mechanisms provides the knowledge base for informed use of modern health care. Does not count as a course in the major.

An introduction to the biology and pathophysiology of blood and the molecular mechanisms of some human diseases: anemias; leukemias; hemorrhagic, thrombotic, and vascular disorders; and HIV disease/AIDS. Honors version available.

Hours, credits, and instructor to be arranged on an individual basis. Hands-on research experience in a predetermined instructor's laboratory. Students learn and apply specific techniques and participate in investigations of molecular mechanisms responsible for disease processes (pathobiology). Contact the director of graduate studies in pathology for information. May be repeated.

Permission of the instructor. Course focuses on practical fundamentals of light microscopy including optics, contrast mechanisms, fluorescence, laser scanning confocal microscopy, photography, and digital imaging.

A graduate course on cell injury and pathogenesis of disease with emphasis on basic mechanisms at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels. Three lecture hours with a complementary two-and-a-half-hour laboratory each week.

A graduate-level laboratory course on basic mechanisms of disease pathogenesis, emphasizing cell and tissue-based examples of major disease mechanisms.

A graduate-level laboratory course on systemic pathology, emphasizing diseases of major organ systems. A follow-up to PATH 713/714L. Three lecture hours (three credits) with a complementary two-and-a-half-hour laboratory ( two credits) each week.

A graduate-level laboratory course on mechanisms of systemic disease pathogenesis, emphasizing cell and tissue-based examples of diseases of the major organ systems.

Permission of the instructor. A multi-disciplinary course providing students principles involved in translating basic science into clinically applicable diagnostics and therapies to improve human disease outcomes. The course is focused on bioinformatics, bioethics, trial design, FDA approval, and commercialization of laboratory diagnostics.

Permission of the instructor. This course examines pathobiological features of cancer. An interdisciplinary approach draws from epidemiology, genetics, molecular biology, and clinical medicine to investigate cancer etiology, pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment.

This course will study human disease processes that are induced or exacerbated by our environment. Environmental disease stressors include solar radiation, air and water pollution, bioreactive substances in foods, pesticides, metals, dusts, particles, and allergens. Lectures will emphasize epidemiology, mechanisms of toxicity, and human disease pathogenesis.

The goal of this graduate-level course is to learn about recent advances in the field, acquire specialized knowledge and to develop a foundation of critical thinking skills in cancer immunology. The course format will combine lectures and in-class discussion of assigned readings, with particular emphasis on state-of-the art research methods. Students should be familiar with modern concepts of immunology and should consult with the course director before enrolling.  The course meets for half a semester.

Permission of the instructor. Second-year graduate students only. This manuscript-based course will emphasize recent advances in heart and blood vessel development, the molecular mechanisms that regulate cardiovascular cell function, and current methodologies in the cardiovascular field. It will be team taught by members of UNC's McAllister Heart Institute.

Second year graduate students or permission of the instructor. Course reviews the molecular, cellular, and organismal pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. It is team-taught by faculty with topic expertise and stresses primary literature and current methodologies. May be taken as a companion to PATH 766 or on its own.

The Mouse Efficacy and Disease Models class is designed for second to third year students who intend on performing in vivo animal research. This course is intended to familiarize graduate students in the issues associated with the development and interpretation of mouse models and also an introduction to alternative models.

Permission of the instructor. Survey of classical and current literature on selected critical issues in carcinogenesis. Students discuss experimental methods and observations as well as theories and generalizations. Two seminar hours a week.

This journal club-style discussion course will focus on molecular events that regulate normal cell cycle progression, and on how deregulation of the cell cycle leads to cancer. Classes will follow the development of the cell cycle field chronologically, learning how current concepts and paradigms have evolved through scientific inquiry.

The students will develop a research plan based on their thesis project and write a 6-page grant in the style of a NRSA F31 application. Students will learn to edit and critique their fellow student's proposals which will help prepare the students for writing and editing their preliminary exam and future grant applications. Restricted to students currently earning a degree in a Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP) with preference given to students in the Pathobiology and Translational Science Graduate Program.

A study in special fields under the direction of the faculty. Offered as needed for presenting material not normally available.

Permission of the department. This is a research course in which advanced students in pathology carry on investigations on mechanisms of disease. Six or more laboratory hours a week, to be arranged. May be repeated.

Permission of the instructor. Participants in the Interdisciplinary Vascular Biology Training Program only. Students will be required to present their thesis work as a formal seminar, give an introductory lecture to introduce their project (in cooperation with their thesis advisor), and to attend and discuss the seminars of other students.

A series of scientific seminars by graduate students, Post-doctoral Fellows, research faculty, and others in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Students will develop the skills necessary to deliver an effective and engaging oral scientific presentation of their research. They will become proficient in understanding the pathogenesis of the wide range of diseases being studied in the department, and the methodologies employed to determine the pathogenesis of those diseases.

May be repeated.