Objectives:

The course aim at providing knowledge about causes and mechanisms for cancer development and introduce the student to scientific articles as source for new knowledge.

Content:

The course covers topics and cancer genetics (somatic and inherited), factors affecting cancer development, how the cancer invade the souring environment and how the immune system and the surrounding tissue interplay, cancer treatment forms and the role of biomarks

On completion of the course the student should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

• can explain the causes and mechanism for cancer development.
• can explain the hallmarks of cancer
• can explain the existing hypothesis for how the cancer gain access to nutrition and spread themselves.
• can give an overview on how the tumor-surroundings affect the cancer cells
• can describe the value and limitations of biomarkers
• can give an overview of molecular and cellular mechanisms of cancer therapy and mechanism for resistance
• can explain the structure of scientific original papers and can extract the main information

Skills

The student

• Master central concepts and hypothesis in tumor biology
• Master the art for analyzing, interpret and critical evaluate simple articles and connect the results and problem to be addressed with the existing knowledge in the field.
• Be able to present the content of scientific papers both oral and written.

General competence

The student

• Can explain and discuss molecular and cellular mechanisms in tumor biology

Knowledge of basic principles of molecular biology (equivalent to MOL100 and MOL200) is required.

Written exam, 4 hours.

Examination support materials: Non