[bioundgrd] FW: A great course to take: 7.341 Microbiome and Drug Delivery

[Crystal Boateng]

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Crystal Boateng (Pronouns: they/them/themselves)
Biology Education Office 68-120
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
31 Ames Street, Cambridge, MA 02139
ph: 617-252-1783 / f: 617-258-9329 / e: cboateng at mit.edu<mailto:cboateng at mit.edu>

Begin forwarded message:


Dear Undergrad students

This semester, I and my colleague Miguel, are offering the course
 " 7.341 Microbiome and drug delivery". This is under advanced undergrad seminars. The course will take you through a fascinating journey of reading important papers of the field, thinking critically and learning new stuff. As Einstein said "Education Is Not the Learning of Facts, But the Training of the Mind To Think". Based on this philosophy we have designed this course and the purpose of the course is training your mind on how to think critically and learn new things. These skills will be very useful for your future.

Please feel free to register for  7.341 if you are interested.
We will have coffee and snacks as well.
For more details please read below.

Best
ALI

Subject: 7.341 Microbiome and Drug Delivery, first session:Wed Feb 7th, 11am, 68-150, Coffee and cookies!

The class is initially offered on Wed. A flexible time will be selected for weekly meetings.

 The course is pass/fail. Your grade will be based on class attendance and participating in discussions, and two assignments.

7.341 The Microbiome and Drug Delivery: Cross-species Communication in Health and Disease

There are more microbes permanently living in our gut than there are cells in the human body. This rich community of bacteria, fungi and viruses, called the microbiome, plays a central role in human health and disease. Recent research has linked this passenger community to nutrition, circadian rhythms, infectious disease, inflammatory disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and even immune system and nervous system development. The connections seem to be so far-reaching that some scientists are starting to consider this human-microbiome system as a “holobiont” or “superorganism.”


Why are we realizing this situation only now? Are microbes actually interacting with us so fundamentally? What are the mechanisms by which effects of the microbiome are mediated? Can we survive without our microbiome? How can we analyze such a complex system? Can we exploit the microbiome to improve human health? Can interactions with microbes be harnessed for drug delivery?

In this course, we will explore the primary scientific literature to find the answers to these questions and learn to critically assess observational and experimental data and to distinguish between correlation and causality.

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