Official Yale
College program and course information is found in Yale College
Programs of Study,
available on line at www.yale.edu/ yalecollege/publications/ycps.
Studies in Evolutionary Medicine
EEB 460b, 960b Studies in Evolutionary Medicine, Part I.
TTh 4:00-5:15
Part I of the two-term linked seminar. Also EMD 695b
E&EB 461a, 961a Studies in Evolutionary Medicine, Part II.
TTh 4:00-5:15.
Part II of the two-term linked seminar. Also EMD 695a
Faculty
Spring semster: Steve Stearns (EEB) and Durland Fish (EPH)
Fall semester: Paul Turner (EEB) and Alison Galvani (EPH)
Credit per term: 1.0
Seminar with student presentations; attendance at guest lectures required
Prerequisites: E&EB 122b or E&EB 225b and MCDB 202a or equivalents; at least junior standing
This two-term course begins in January. Students learn the major principles of evolutionary biology and apply them to issues in medical research and practice by presenting and discussing original papers from the current research literature. Students develop a research proposal based on one of their own questions in spring term, spend the summer on a research project related to their research proposal, and write a paper based on the results of their research in fall term. The course meets for two 75-minute sessions each week. Credit and grades are awarded for each term. Only students who have engaged in summer research projects may enroll in the fall term. Admission is by competitive application only
This course is intended as an orientation to the field for beginning PhD students in E&EB and E&PH and as a capstone course for highly qualified undergraduate and MPH students, primarily those interested in going on to graduate school, medical school, and MD/PhD programs. Covering those areas of medical research and practice where evolutionary biology sheds useful new light, it brings students to the leading edge of research by having them present and discuss papers from the current literature, attend and discuss lectures by prominent scientists, carry out a summer research project, and write up their research results as a scientific paper with the support and feedback of the course instructors.
Special features
- 4 visiting lectures per semester. Students are required to attend the lectures, participate in discussion following the lecture, and attend dinner with the speaker in a college. Visiting lecturers for Spring 2010 are Marc Feldman (Stanford, February 4th, Dinner in Saybrook), David Haig (Harvard, February 11th, dinner in Berkeley), Scott Weaver (UT Houston, March 4th, dinner in Berkeley), and Ezra Susser (Columbia, April 1st, dinner in Berkeley)
- Summer research projects hosted in labs at Yale and IARU partners (Oxford, Cambridge, Copenhagen, ETH Zurich) and as arranged by students anywhere else in the world with approval of the instructors. Support for travel, subsistence, and research supplies will be provided.
Spring Semester Syllabus (13 weeks)
Week Topic 1: The logic of science
1 The method of multiple working hypotheses
1 Strong inference
1 Evidence-based medicine
1 How to evaluate the quality of scientific literature
Topic 2: Recent human evolution, genetic variation, and mismatches to modernity
2 Human history, geography, and genetics
2 SNPs and the HapMap project: promise and problems
3 Genetic variation in response to drugs and pathogens
3 Genetic variation for susceptibility to alcohol and lactose
4 The Hygiene/Old Friends Hypothesis: parasites and autoimmune disease
4 Gene-culture co-evolution: milk and alcohol
Topic 3: Natural selection and evolutionary conflicts
5 Kin selection to conflict to genetic imprinting: reproduction and mental disease
5 Hormones and life history tradeoffs in humans: aging and disease resistance
6 MHC variation, reproductive outcome, and mate choice
6 Kin Selection, sexual selection, and human mortality rates
Topic 4: Ecology and epidemiology of disease
7 Fundamentals of epidemiology
7 Principles of landscape epidemiology
8 Ecology and evolution of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases
8 Causes of disease cycling
Topic 5: Noninfectious and degenerative disease
9 Evolutionary and mechanistic approaches to aging
10 Pathogens, heart disease, cancer, and aging: roles for Chlamydia and viruses?
11 Developmental origins of adult disease: epigenetics and plasticity
11 Lifestyle, diet, and chronic risks to health
12 Cancer as an evolutionary process
13 Autoimmune diseases: the costs and benefits of evolving immune defenses
13 Introduction to writing a scientific paper
Fall Semester Syllabus (12 weeks)
Week Topic 7: Professional skills
1 How to write a scientific paper: in depth discussion
Topic 8: The origins and evolutionary genetics of pathogens
2 Evolutionary origins of human viruses
3 Evolutionary genetics of pathogenic bacteria: population structure
3 Sexual mechanisms and pathogen evolution: housekeeping vs. virulence
4 Levels of selection and bacterial pathogenesis: prophage, plasmids, others
5 Whole-genome analysis of pathogen evolution
6 Emergence of new infectious diseases
7 How to give a research talk (weeks 7, 8, 9: research talks on Thursdays)
Topic 8: Pathogen evolution: antibiotics and vaccines, resistance and virulence
8 The importance of infectious disease: history and current global significance
9 The evolution of virulence: transmission mode, multiple infections
10 The evolution of drug resistance
10 Evolutionary responses of pathogens to vaccines
11 Evolutionary aspects of pathogen control: virulence management, phage therapy
11 Pathogen evolution in response to passage through humans: influenza
Topic 9: Social organization and behavior
12 Evolutionary psychiatry: personality disorders, disorders of mood, psychoses
Topic 10: Evolutionary principles applied to medical practice
12 The medicalization of the natural: issues in reproductive health
13 Impacts on clinical practice
Reference books
S.C. Stearns & J.C. Koella (eds). 2008. Evolution in Health and Disease, 2nd Ed Oxford University Press. 374 p.
Gluckman, P., Beedle, A. & Hanson, M. 2009. Principles of Evolutionary Medicine. Oxford University Press. 320 p.
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