General provisions

The course is offered as part of the Master's Programmes in the Faculty of Medicine.

Entry requirements

Admitted to the Master's Programme in Medical Research. Knowledge in English equivalent to that required for basic eligibility to Swedish higher education on basic level.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the course, the student should be able to describe:

• Heterotypic and homotypic cell-cell contacts and how these contacts mediate intracellular communication.
• How signaling via various receptor types (e.g. integrins, RTKs, RS/TKs) transduces intracellular signaling.
• Cell-matrix communication including mechanisms of cell motility.
• Glycoprotein and proteoglycan structure and biology including molecular gradients and their involvement in embryology and disease.
• How different posttranslational modifications regulate protein function and activity.
• The role of ubiquitination in signal transduction and protein degradation.
• The role of reactive oxygen species as secondary messengers.
• How cells respond to stress signals in homeostasis and disease (e.g. autophagy and ER stress).
• Different developmentally important signaling pathways and their roles in embryogenesis and in disease (i.e. Wnt, Hedgehog, Notch, TGFbeta/BMP, Hippo, Jak/STAT-Toll-like, nuclear receptors).
• How microRNA/lncRNA regulate cell signaling.
• How different techniques are used to study cell signaling.

Content

The course focuses on how cells communicate and transduce signalling via cell-cell and cell-matrix contacts. Different receptor types involved in these contacts are discussed. How signalling is mediated by various protein modifications and second messengers that transduce signals intracellularly and regulate developmental processes during embryology, homeostasis and in diseases. Different signalling pathways will be thoroughly described. Demonstration of an experimental approach to cell signalling research by focusing on one major signalling molecule (a protein kinase).

Instruction

Teaching will be performed with lectures, complemented with student activating mandatory education (seminars, journal clubs and laboratory sessions). In parallel the longitudinal project experiments (started during the earlier courses on the programme) will be continued.

Assessment

Examination includes a written exam graded fail (U), pass (G) or pass with distinction (VG). The complementary assignments will be examined at seminars or through oral and/or written reports (of the laboratory session) and will be graded fail (U) or pass (G) only.

To pass the course the students have to attend and be active in all compulsory sessions. The grading from exam(s) and assignments will together generate a final weighted course grade. Possibility for completion of not approved compulsory assignments may be given at the earliest at next course and only in case of a vacancy. Students who have failed the first examination are allowed five re-examinations.

If there exist special reasons the examiner can give allowance for alternative sets of assessment to examin an individual student. Specific conditions may e.g. be special pedagogic support described by the university's coordinator for special support.