BIOL 195 - Topics in Biology

Credits: 3 credits in Fall and Winter, 4 credits in Spring

Topics vary with instructor and term. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Fall 2019, BIOL 195A-01: Topic in Biology: Evolutionary Medicine (3). Analyzing human health through the lens of evolutionary biology can lead to a better understanding of disease and improved patient outcomes. Humans and the pathogens that infect us share a long, co-evolutionary history, and the results of treatment often depend critically upon the trajectories of within-host pathogen evolution. Many non-infectious diseases and syndromes may also be side effects of long-term human adaptation to an environment that is very different from our modern world. This course explores several topics in evolutionary medicine including the evolution of the human microbiome, human-pathogen coevolution, the evolution of drug resistance and evolutionary strategies for avoiding resistance, recent human evolution, aging, cancer, and human genomics and personalized medicine. (SC) Sackman.