Microbe-Host Interactions in Health and Disease

For graduate, medical, and advanced undergraduate students. Required for first-year graduate students in Microbiology and Immunology. This course explores how microbes interact with their hosts, from causing disease to promoting health. Students will engage with the primary scientific literature to gain a nuanced understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing interactions between pathogenic or symbiotic microbes and their human hosts. Topics include how pathogenic viruses, bacteria, and parasites invade hosts and evade immune defenses. These mechanisms will then be compared with how microbiomes assemble, shape immune responses and metabolism, and shift from healthy to disease-promoting states. Across systems, students will learn about important processes shaping microbe-host interactions such as horizontal gene transfer and anti-bacteriophage defenses. Undergraduate students interested in taking this class must meet with the instructors to obtain approval before enrolling.