Course Description
While microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses) are often associated with disease, microbes can also promote good health in humans and animals. The purpose of this course is to develop an understanding as to how microorganisms, both naturally occurring and genetically modified, can be used to detect, treat, and prevent diseases.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Graduate students will be required to complete a written graded research proposal assignment along with their oral presentations. The exam questions will be different and appropriate to their grade level.
Athena Title
Bugs and Drugs
Prerequisite
MIBO 2500 or MIBO 2500E or MIBO 3500 or MIBO 3500E or MIBO 3500H
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- At the completion of this course, students should be able to distinguish between genetic, physiological, and structural features of microorganisms to differentiate between their roles in providing health benefits vs. contributing to disease processes.
- At the completion of this course, students should be able to demonstrate how different disease processes (e.g., infectious vs. non-infectious) respond to therapeutic approaches afforded by live biotherapeutic products in the development of new intervention strategies.
- At the completion of this course, students should be able to compare the advantages and disadvantages, including ethical considerations, of using live biotherapeutic products vs. more traditional drug treatment regimens for treatment of specific diseases.
- At the completion of this course, students should be able to design a microbial system (e.g., bacteria, yeast, or virus) that could be engineered or modified with new or refined features (e.g., genes encoding new therapeutic products, genetic elements that control their expression) to detect, diagnose, or treat a specific disease.
Topical Outline
- Week 1
1. Introduction, course objectives
2. Fundamentals of microbiology, review 1
3. “Bugs as drugs”: history & general principles
- Week 2
1. Probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics
2. Live biotherapeutic products (LBP)
3. Paper review 1
- Week 3
1. Specific microbial systems: Lactic acid bacteria
2. E. coli Nissle
3. Bacillus & other Gram-positive species
- Week 4
1. Yeast & fungi (e.g., Saccharomyces boulardii)
2. Viruses and bacteriophage
3. Paper review 2
- Week 5
1. Targeting beneficial microorganisms to specific host systems
2. Humans (e.g., gut, lung, skin)
3. Humans, continued
- Week 6
1. Animals (e.g., rumen)
2. Plants (rhizosphere and phyllosphere)
3. Paper review 3
- Week 7
1. Insects & parasites
2. Midterm exam
3. Specific disease processes and their treatments
- Week 8
1. Cancer
2. Metabolic diseases
3. Paper review 4
- Week 9
1. Inflammatory diseases: IBD, Crohn’s diseases
2. Neurodegeneration
3. Infection
- Week 10
1. Synthetic biology & genetic engineering
2. Methods of characterization
3. Paper review 5
- Week 11
1. Engineering probiotics
2. Engineering LBPs
3. Antibiotic resistance and bacteriophage therapy
- Week 12
1. Microbial canaries: microorganisms as biosensors
2. Engineering biosensors
3. Paper review 6
- Week 13
1. Better together: Targeting the microbiome
2. Stay in your lane: Biocontainment systems
3. Regulatory & ethical considerations
- Week 14
1. LBP Design presentations 1
2. LBP Design presentations 2
3. LBP Design presentations 3
- Week 15
1. LBP Design presentations 4
2. LBP Design presentations 5
3. LBP Design presentations 6
