SIIK24003U Clinical Immunology

This course is designed to bring an in-depth understanding of the immune system’s role in the development of several common inflammatory human diseases.

To achieve this aim, we will take a disease-oriented approach with teaching sessions from experts in various inflammatory disorders that affect the lung (eg, asthma, COPD), intestines (eg, IBD, celiac disease), brain (eg, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimers), and other bodily tissues (eg, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjøgren’s Syndrome, SLE).

Teaching sessions will describe the structure and composition of our body’s tissues - the cell types that can be expected to be found in these tissues and how immune cells live in these organs. We will touch on how these organs and immune cells operate in health, and what happens in the case of inflammation/disease. Different types of white blood cells (leukocytes) and their interplay with non-immune cells will be reviewed along with the role of various immune molecules such as antibodies, cell surface receptors, cytokines and chemokines (immune hormones).

When it comes to the different inflammatory conditions, we will ask:

1) what are the critical failures that lead to disease?

2) what are the major cell types that cause disease?

3) what are the critical molecules that cause disease?

4) how can we target the immune system to alleviate disease?

As well as learning from experts in the field by way of lectures and other types of teaching sessions, students will learn to analyse publicly available RNA-Sequencing datasets from some inflammatory conditions. The aim here will be to become more familiar with programming language and applications related to analysis of sequencing data. We will use datasets rich in immune cell infiltrates so that students can also explore the how immune cells behave and change in these disease conditions.