BIO 307 - Immunology

In no other time has it been more relevant to understand how the immune system works than in the COVID19 era. However, we must prioritize health - personal and that of the community - while also doing our best to create a supportive environment for rigorous learning. In this course will focus on the fundamental principles of immunology - diversity, specificity, memory, self-tolerance, and regulation on the cellular and molecular level with emphasis on mammalian models. This course will explore questions such as how do the immune cells distinguish between self and non-self, how is the enormous diversity of exquisitely specific antigen recognition receptors generated, how is immune memory generated, how the immune response is coordinated in space and time, and how did our immune system evolve. Students will participate in article discussions and will design and execute a research project in lab that explores the mouse immune system using immunological techniques such as flow cytometry, ELISA, immunostaining, and Western blot.

A preliminary syllabus may be obtained by emailing the instructor.

Prerequisites & Notes
Successful completion of BIO 111/113, CHE 115, and one of the following: BIO 201, 202, or 208/238 are required.  Not open to students with credit for BIO 337.  Limited to sophomores, juniors, and seniors or permission of instructor.  One laboratory meeting per week.  Satisfies Group A.

Spring 2021
As online classes are best to prevent the spread of COVID-19, while also having the benefit of being the most equitable way of holding classes, ensuring equal access to all students, we will have online class, but the lab portion will be in person as hands-on experience tends to be most valuable there. We will use our scheduled time to meet synchronously with emphasis on discussion, presentations, and small group work in breakout rooms. Therefore, it will be even more essential to do all the asynchronous work (reading, watching short videos, and other assignments) in a timely fashion, such that we can spend most of the Zoom time in discussion and presentation of cases. In the event that a synchronous session cannot be attended, you will be able to make up by watching the Zoom recording and providing discussion input and/or assignment completion by submitting it in writing or via a short video. For lab, we may need to stagger to accommodate for the person limit for our assigned lab.