Courses

This course provides an in-depth analysis of several organ systems and diseases associated with each organ system. The course has four modules; each module describes the basic physiology, nutritional status and anatomy of the organ system, the genetics, cell and biochemical mechanisms and pathologies associated with the disease, as well as basic pharmacology and therapeutics to treat the disease. Course Directors: Ronald Liem and Steven Spitalnik.

This fall semester required for all first year students course covers basic biochemical and experimental principles, such as protein and nucleic acid structure and chemistry, thermodynamics and enzyme kinetics, and bioinformatics. Also included are biochemical processes common to all cells such as genome replication and repair, regulation of gene expression, cell cycle control, and cell membrane and receptor biochemistry. Course Director: Stavros Lomvardas.

Required for all first year students in spring semester, this course is an Introduction to eukaryotic cell biology and covers such topics as membrane trafficking, the mitochondria, the nucleus, viral biology, apoptosis as well as the cytoskeleton and its role in various cellular processes, including mitosis, cell migration, cell polarity and cell adhesion. Course Directors: Gregg Gundersen and Ai Yamamoto.

This course covers the basic tools for the collection, analysis, and presentation of data. Central to these skills is assessing the impact of chance and variability on the interpretation of research findings and subsequent recommendations for public health practice and policy. Topics covered include: general principles of study design; estimation; hypothesis testing; several methods for comparison of discrete and continuous data including chi-square test of independence, t-test, ANOVA, correlation, regression and logistic regression.

This course covers the major disciplines required for successful therapeutics discovery, validation, and development including: 1) basic mechanisms of disease/target identification; 2) drugging the target/high throughput screening; 3) target validation/proof of concept relevant animal models of human disease; 4) introduction to medicinal chemistry – optimization of compounds/biologics; 5) basic concepts of intellectual property protection; 6) fundamentals of medical pharmacology; 7) basics in toxicology; 8) principles of drug development from pre-clinical to IND filing; 9) fundamentals of clinical testing. Course Director: Andrew Marks

This spring semester course explores a variety of ethical and policy issues that arise during the conduct of basic and clinical scientific research. Course sessions include lectures, discussion periods, and analyses of case studies. Columbia requires that all graduate students share in the discussions of this course. You will hear from your faculty speaking honestly about problems that you may face. You will find the discussions interesting. Course Directors: Arthur Palmer and Jaime Rubin.