LSC-30009 - Module Specification
School of Life Sciences
Faculty of Natural Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

The majority of staff that contribute to the module are external experts from local and national hospitals, research institutes and Government departments. These staff, therefore, hold significant posts across a spectrum of clinical and clinical related areas. Students will benefit from lectures and expertise in Clinical Diagnostic Pathology, Parasitology, Biochemistry, Cutting-edge Genomics and Inflammatory Diseases. Students will gain insight into how patients are managed from their initial presentation from the perspective of diagnosis and treatment. The course will cover both standardised testing options and the development of new diagnostic procedures with a particular emphasis on genetic and epigenetic aspects of disease. Students will also gain an appreciation of the cost benefit of particular routes for diagnosis and treatment and the importance of identifying false positive and false negative results. Finally, students will have the opportunity to perform their own literature review of a disease related topic that is not covered by the course through formal lectures.

The aims of the module are to illustrate the roles of existing and newly emerging biochemical and molecular techniques including the use of personalised medicines in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases within a hospital pathology department. Students will also gain an appreciation of cost-benefit decisions that are inherent in many of the diagnostic methodologies and their implications for both the patient and the clinician.

Intended Learning Outcomes

critically discuss the techniques available at presentation to the clinician to establish (a) cause, (b) diagnosis, (c) treatment of particular diseases: 1,2
critically discuss emerging diagnostic techniques and evaluate the benefits that they provide: 1,2
discuss the ways in which basic research contributes to an understanding of disease processes: 1,2
engage with a range of online data repositories to identify information pertinent to the aims and outcomes of the course: 1
evaluate collections of evidence, ranking scientific publications based upon a range of criteria and summarising findings concisely: 1,2

Study hours

18 hours of live, in person sessions
10 x 5 hours engagement with asynchronous content
60 hours independent study
10 hours private study reading papers and preparing notes for ICA 1
10 hours preparation of ICA 1
2 hour examination

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment