This course illustrates how knowledge and principles of biology, biochemistry, and engineering are integrated to create new products for societal benefit. It uses a case study format to examine recently developed products of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries: how a product evolves from initial idea, through patents, testing, evaluation, production, and marketing. Emphasizes scientific and engineering principles; the responsibility scientists, engineers, and business executives have for the consequences of their technology; and instruction and practice in written and oral communication. The topic focus of this class will vary from year to year. This version looks at inflammation underlying many diseases, specifically its role in cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Describe physical and chemical immune barriersExplain immediate and induced innate immune responsesDiscuss natural killer cellsDescribe major histocompatibility class I moleculesSummarize how the proteins in a complement system function to destroy extracellular pathogens

This 15-minute video provides an overview of the inflammatory response. [Biology playlist: Lesson 58 of 71].

Immune cells protect our bodies from both self-derived threats and exogenous pathogens, while keeping peace with normal cells and non-harmful commensal microbiota. They have various mechanisms to perform these tasks, a capacity that is essential for maintaining homeostasis. However, these same mechanisms can backfire, resulting in severe disorders such as immunodeficiency, chronic inflammation, allergy, degenerative diseases, and cancer. This course discusses the connections between normal physiology and disease by examining the developmental relationship between innate and adaptive immune cells as well as the functions and malfunctions of immune cells. The course familiarizes students with both basic biological principles (such as cell death and immune cell signaling) and clinical applications (such as immune checkpoint blockade). More generally, students learn to identify relevant primary research literature, critically evaluate experimental data, and reach their own conclusions based on primary data.

This courses focuses on the fundamentals of tissue and organ response to injury from a molecular and cellular perspective. There is a special emphasis on disease states that bridge infection, inflammation, immunity, and cancer. The systems approach to pathophysiology includes lectures, critical evaluation of recent scientific papers, and student projects and presentations. This term, we focus on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), chronic-active hepatitis, and hepatitis virus infections. In addition to lectures, students work in teams to critically evaluate and present primary scientific papers.