CAN 5162 CANCER BIOLOGY II
The goal is for the students to develop a keen appreciation of the tools available at hand to dissect the molecular mechanisms controlling cancer development such that they can take this knowledge to the bench to develop their own graduate research.
At one level, the goal of this course is to provide students (especially those who have taken CBI) with knowledge of the latest concepts in cancer biology and cancer therapeutics and a general appreciation of the rapid advances made in this area of biomedicine. An attempt has been made to arrange the lectures thematically to provide the student with an understanding of: 1) how specific cellular processes are altered during cancer initiation and progression, 2) how different cancers are being modeled and studied in the laboratory, 3) how the genetic landscape of human cancers is being deciphered, and 4) how novel therapeutics are being designed to target an individual tumor based upon its genetic signature.
At another level, this course aims to arm beginning graduate students with a working understanding of different cutting-edge methods that are being used to answer key questions in cancer biology and therapeutics. Each lecturer would emphasize at least one key technique or analytical tool that is in use in his or her laboratory. This would, hopefully, empower students to tackle their own graduate research using multi-disciplinary approaches.