MSci Microbiology

You will learn about the basic cellular mechanisms underlying common human diseases and understand how drugs act on cellular and tissue dysfunctions to treat these diseases. You will study topics including autoimmune disease, cancer and arthritis.

To introduce cellular and molecular mechanisms of human disease.

Students will acquire knowledge of the basic cellular mechanisms underlying common human diseases and will understand how drugs act on cellular and tissue dysfunctions to ameliorate these diseases.

The course examines the cellular and molecular causes of a wide variety of human diseases such as fibrosis, inflammation and cancer. It aims to show how understanding a disease at the molecular level explains its pathology and allows the design of therapeutic strategies. Specific topics will include:
•    Cell death mechanisms and disease
•    Cell adhesion and its pathological defects of connective tissues
•    Inflammation and anti-inflammatory drugs
•    Molecular pathology of cancer
•    Cancer chemotherapy

eLearning Activity
Each set of lectures will be followed by an online quiz to provide formative feedback on your understanding of the material.

Each set of lectures will be followed by an online quiz to provide formative feedback on your understanding of the material.

A two hour in person exam with a mix of short answers to assess factual knowledge and longer questions to test depth/conceptual understanding.

The eLearning activities will provide online feedback. Advice on the example exam questions on the eLearning resource will be provided if requested. Post-exam guidance will be provided. There will be four in person Q&A sessions spaced throughout the unit for feedback.

The following general texts will provide useful background include. However, no one textbook will cover all the material presented in the lectures, due to the diverse nature of the course. Each lecturer will therefore provide specific reference articles for their lecture material.
Recommended Reading

1.    Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K & Walter P, Molecular Biology of the Cell (7th edition), Garland Science, 2015, Recommended
2.    Rang HP, Ritter JM & Flower, R, and Henderson Rang & Dale’s Pharmacology (8th Edition), Elsevier, Recommended

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2027 will be £10,050 per annum. Tuition fees for international students will be £38,000 per annum.

For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).