MCBI 608: Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases

The course aims to teach the principles and practical approaches for the use of molecular laboratory techniques to address problems in the epidemiology of infectious diseases. These will include the use of molecular techniques in investigations of disease outbreaks, the characterization of disease transmission dynamics, and identifying risk factors for transmission. Epidemiological study designs such as case-control, cohort and cross sectional studies will be introduced and analysis of molecular or genetic data obtained from these studies. The course will also discuss molecular methods for identifying antimicrobial resistance and for determining the population structure of pathogens using genetics. Students will also be introduced to on-line tools and databases such as Sit-vit, and MIRU-VNTR plus for determining circulating strains.