Course content

In this course you will study the molecular biology of bacteria which cause infection in humans. We will focus on selected infectious diseases causing both sporadic infections and outbreaks, and the bacteria which cause these diseases. You will study the clinical presentation of the disease and its epidemiology, the genomic structure of the microorganisms, mobile genetic elements and the mechanisms of horizontal gene transfer, virulence factors and how the microorganisms cause disease, and antimicrobial resistance. Further, you will learn about molecular methods for diagnosis and genotyping of bacteria. You will also get experience with basic bioinformatics methods for analysis and comparison of bacterial nucleic acid and genome sequences. Finally, you will study the relation between the human microbiome and health/disease and basic methagenomics methods for microbiome analyses.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

After completion of the course the student should be able to:

• Demonstrate advanced knowledge about the molecular biology of bacteria including mobile genomic elements and their role in bacterial adaptation.
• Demonstrate good knowledge about important bacterial pathogens, including epidemiology and role in infection
• Demonstrate advanced knowledge about molecular methods for detection of bacterial infections
• Demonstrate advanced knowledge about molecular methods for genotyping of bacteria, and their use in surveillance, transmission and outbreak investigation of bacterial infectious diseases
• Demonstrate basic knowledge about bioinformatics methods used for quality control, assembly, in silico typing and detection of resistance and virulence genes in bacteria
• Demonstrate basic knowledge about the human microbiome and metagenomics methods for microbiome analyses

Skills

After completion of the course the student shall be able to:

• Choose appropriate methods to use for identification and genotyping based on bacterial species and type of clinical problem
• Evaluate and compare different methods used for sequencing
• Interpret results from genotyping in a clinical context
• Perform basic bioinformatics analyses on bacterial genomes
• Perform quality control, evaluate and interpret results from bioinformatics analyses

General competence

After completion of the course the student shall be able to:

• Demonstrate an advanced understanding of the most common bacterial pathogens as well as the molecular methods used for detection and genotyping in medical microbiology
• Evaluate and select appropriate methods to be used in a molecular medical microbiology laboratory

Learning methods and activities

Lectures.

Compulsory assignments

• Exercise

Recommended previous knowledge

Basic knowledge in microbiology, cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology.

Course materials

Will be announced.

Credit reductions