DEPARTMENT OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY
Seminar
The purpose of this course is to give students extensive and practical seminar
experience. A professor will be assigned to comment the student’s performance.
Experimental Microbiology and Immunology
This course is composed of lectures and experiments in bacteriology, virology,
immunology and molecular biology. Professors give lectures and conduct
experiments based on their own specialty. Students should attend all the lectures
and rotate in laboratories as the teaching assistants.
Graduate Immunology
This course introduces the general concepts of immunology and the interaction
among various lymphoid cells.
Molecular Biology
This course introduces basic knowledge from the synthesis of DNA, RNA and
proteins to various tools and biotechnologies used in this field.
Scientific reading and writing in English
The goal of this course is to improve the ability of the students to read and write
the scientific papers in English. The specific objectives are:
To develop effective strategies for reading the scientific papers
To analyze the critical strategies at work in the texts of the assigned papers, and
apply them t one’s own writing.
To understand the common problems in medical writing and develop effective
strategies to overcome them.
To explore the effective use of tables and figures in preparing manuscripts.
To develop strategies for effective oral presentation.
To develop scientific and critical thinking.
The course contains lectures, discussions on assigned papers, and group
discussion on the manuscript written by every participating student.
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Advanced Bacteriology
This is an advanced course focusing on the latest progress on various topics in
the fields of bacterial genetics and physiology. This course is taught in a combined
style including lectures, discussions and student presentations of research papers.
Advanced Immunology
Class includes discussion of literature readings with an emphasis on recent
advances in lymphocyte activation and effector functions, as well as
immunoregulation which includes T cell receptors, signal transduction, cytokines,
mechanisms of tolerance, inflammation, etc.
Advanced Virology
This course emphasizes the diverse mechanisms of virus replication and the
applications of the viruses from the point of molecular biology. Viruses are divided
into RNA and DNA. The replication models of the unique viruses are discussed in
detail.
Medical Microbiology
The general introduction and clinical relevance of immune system, bacteria,
fungus and virus in medical science are included.
Scientific Method in Animal Experiment
This is an introduction to research methodology on animal experiments. The
course design is based on the practical applications, not just pure statistics. The
course content includes experimental design, collection and analysis of literature,
oral presentation skills, data analysis (including applications of software), graphical
production, scientific thesis writing, and animal experiment techniques.
Gene Therapy
This is a two-credit course for master’s students. Several teachers who have
expertise in gene therapy are involved in the course. The objective of the course is
to provide an integrated approach to the basic and clinical science of gene therapy.
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The topics given in the course include (1) gene therapy - an overview; (2) viral
vectors for gene therapy; (3) non-viral vectors for gene therapy; (4) immuno-gene
therapy and DNA vaccine; (5) immunotherapy and cell therapy; (6) cancer gene
therapy using suicide genes, oncolytic viruses and stem cells; (7) oncogenes, tumor
suppressor genes, cell cycle & gene therapy; (8) anti-angiogenic and angiogenic
gene therapy; (9) gene therapy for genetic diseases; and (10) clinical trials and
future prospects of gene therapy. A film entitled “the enemy within” from BBC
“Superhuman” series is also used as a teaching material, which shows how cancer
lives inside the body, how it grows and how it travels searching for new sites before
eventually overwhelming its hosts. The film records several cancer patients
undergoing different therapeutic interventions. Finally, students are assigned to
present gene therapy papers. At the end of the course, students should be able to
conceive, plan, design and carry out a gene transfer experiment. Grades will be
based on learning attitude (20%), including attendance and participation in
discussion, oral presentation (40%) and final report (40%).
Clinical Immunology
The course of "Clinical Immunology" is the application of the
basic discipline established in recent development of immunology field to a better
understanding of the mechanisms of human diseases. Since a variety of diseases are
mediated through immune mechanisms, the expertise of the clinical immunologist
is essential to a number of subspecialties regarding the diagnosis and treatment of
their patients problem. To the basic scientist, it also provided the window of how
basic research could have the major impact from bench to bedsides, as well as
become more diseases-oriented problem solving in their own research.
So our target students are medical student in their final years before internship,
and graduated students from various of institutes of Basic Medicine that interested
in the application of basic research regarding to immune mediated diseases. The
course will arranged into different section, which cover 1. the basic concepts of
clinical immunology, 2. Immune Deficiency, 3. Systemic autoimmune disease 4.
Type 1 to 4 Hypersensitivity reaction and diseases 5. Organ transplantation 6.
and specific organ immune disease that involved in Kidney, skin, lung, nervous
system and Cancer.
Approach to Biological Knowledge
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Biology is more or less akin to a series of drifting knowledge. A wandering
hangs between measurable and immeasurable data, between sophisticated
interpretation and naïve intuition. How people recognizing the biological facts and
hereby reconstructing a net of perceptions for lives on the earth are within the
scope of this course. Concepts, logic, idealism, and paradigms are reevaluated
under the social/cultural context. Discussion, debate and reasoning based on
individual experiences are emphasized. The students will learn the ways of
scientific thinking, the deficiencies in empirical laws and the traps of cognitive
abilities.
The course is divided into four sections as following:
1. General introduction to research formats in biology.
2. Disciplines for biological research.
3. Integrated views of biology and their augmentation.
4. Affirmation and rebuttal on Darwinism
Grading is made based on course attendance, involvement in discussion, and
home work of the students.
Infection and Immunity
The course “Infection and Immunity” is a 2-credit course that is offered in the
Fall semester by Department of Microbiology & Immunology, College of Medicine,
National Cheng Kung University. The aim of this course is to give graduate student
in-depth knowledge and current clinical research on the interaction between
infection and host immune response. It is a selective course, and the students
should have background on medical microbiology and immunology. The course is
topic-oriented. The organizer of the course, which is a three-year turn, will choose
specific topics depending on the area of specialty of the faculty and the important
and emerging infectious disease in Taiwan. For example, human immunodeficiency
virus, hepatitis C virus, influenza virus, Helicobacterium pylori, Mycobacterium
tuberculosis infection are important infectious disease worldwide, while enterovirus
virus, dengue virus, hepatitis B virus are prevalent in Taiwan. The severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus is the new emerging infectious disease in the
world. We will have specialist to cover this field. The overview and current
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scientific approach will be discussed in the class. The basic research and clinical
part on each microorganism will be integrated to focus on the pathogenesis or
immunopathogenis in the pathogen-induced disease.
Microbial Pathogenesis
Objectives:
1. To introduce systemic knowledge of contemporary pathogenic
mechanisms induced by human viruses and bacteria.
2. To increase ability to read and present molecular virology and
bacteriology literature and to understand the methodology of
contemporary research on microbial pathogenesis.
3. To increase ability to formulate and experimentally test hypotheses
relevant to pathogenic studies of viruses and bacteria.
Requirements:
This course is offered to students who have finished the graduate level of
molecular biology course.
Course components:
1. Lectures: Topics on general aspects of viral and bacterial pathogenesis.
2. Discussion: Meeting of students with a faculty mentor to discuss two
research papers related to the lecture topic of the week.
Required readings:
Lecturers will distribute written notes. The notes will cover a basic
understanding of the subject for the week. At the end of notes will be questions
for discussion to serve as a guide for study.
Exams:
There will be two written exams. The exam will be composed of one
question from each lecture. The first exam will cover viral pathogenesis and the
second exam will cover bacterial pathogenesis.
Grades:
Grades will be a composite of exams (1/3), paper presentation (1/3), and
participation in discussion (1/3).
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