Admission requirements
This course is for MSc students in Biology.
Description
Innate immunity is the primary mechanism by which animals and plants defend themselves against pests and diseases. Their innate immune systems rely on limited sets of evolutionary conserved receptors that recognize pathogen-associated molecular patterns, pathogen-derived effector proteins and danger signals. In vertebrates, the innate immune system also functions to alert the adaptive immune system, which depends on a vast receptor variety and clonal selection of cytotoxic and antibody-producing cells. The course will primarily deal with the different innate defense mechanisms, their biochemical and molecular genetic mode of action, their efficiency and durability and their evolution, heritability and plasticity.
Course objectives
At the end of the course students are able to:
Define molecular components and explain key concepts (including signal molecules, receptors, signaling pathways, transcription factors, defense genes and molecules) in innate immunity in plants, insects and vertebrates
Read and critically evaluate scientific papers published in leading journals in the innate immunity field
Formulate critical questions about scientific papers and debate about possible answers
Make a powerpoint presentation about a scientific paper and present and discuss the scientific data and conclusions
Apply knowledge gained in the course to explain a set of scientific data in the field of innate immunity
Timetable
The detailed schedule depends on the number of participants and will be finalized after the first session. Typically the course will run from March, up to and including June, with weekly sessions (time/duration depending on the number of participants).
In MyTimetable, you can find all course and programme schedules, allowing you to create your personal timetable. Activities for which you have enrolled via MyStudyMap will automatically appear in your timetable.
Additionally, you can easily link MyTimetable to a calendar app on your phone, and schedule changes will be automatically updated in your calendar. You can also choose to receive email notifications about schedule changes. You can enable notifications in Settings after logging in.
Questions? Watch the video, read the instructions, or contact the ISSC helpdesk.
Note: Joint Degree students from Leiden/Delft need to combine information from both the Leiden and Delft MyTimetables to see a complete schedule. This video explains how to do it.
Mode of instruction
Reading selection of original research papers. Oral presentation of one of the topics. Emphasis is on critical reading, discussion and oral presentations by the participants.
Assessment method
Oral presentation, discussion and a written exam. The assessment method may be subject to change depending on participant number.
Minimum grade:
Courses require a minimum, unrounded 5.5 grade to complete.
If a course has 2 or more written partial exams, the minimum grade only applies to the weighted average of the exams.
For partial grades from components other than exams (e.g. practicals, seminars, writing assignments), the bottom grade does apply to the individual components.
Please refer to the Student Charter for an overview of regulations.
Reading list
Links to research papers will be posted on Brightspace at the start of the course. In addition links to 3-5 review papers about innate immunity will be posted as background reading. Participants are assumed to be familiar with the basic theory about the innate immune system in Molecular Biology of the Cell (Alberts et al. sixth edition; chapter 24, pp. 1297-1306) and otherwise this knowledge needs to be acquired by self-study prior to or during the beginning of the course.
Registration
As a student, you are responsible for enrolling on time through MyStudyMap.
In this short video, you can see step-by-step how to enrol for courses in MyStudyMap.
Extensive information about the operation of MyStudyMap can be found here.
There are two enrolment periods per year:
Enrolment for the fall opens in July
Enrolment for the spring opens in December
See this page for more information about deadlines and enrolling for courses and exams.
Note:
It is mandatory to enrol for all activities of a course that you are going to follow.
Your enrolment is only complete when you submit your course planning in the ‘Ready for enrolment’ tab by clicking ‘Send’.
Not being enrolled for an exam/resit means that you are not allowed to participate in the exam/resit.
Contact
Coordinators:
Prof.dr. A.H. Meijer a.h.meijer@biology.leidenuniv.nl
Dr. P. Ding p.ding@biology.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
Your registration is not complete if you have not registered for all course components available in my study map (exam, lecture, etc.).
Minimum number of participants is 20 and maximum number of participants is 36. The exact format of the course depends on participant number.
Software
Starting from the 2024/2025 academic year, the Faculty of Science will use the software distribution platform Academic Software. Through this platform, you can access the software needed for specific courses in your studies. For some software, your laptop must meet certain system requirements, which will be specified with the software. It is important to install the software before the start of the course. More information about the laptop requirements can be found on the student website.