Organs growing on chips? Your skin cells being reprogrammed into beating heart muscle? Tiny brains in a dish? What sounds like science fiction is no longer purely fictional. In the lab, advances in stem cell biology, tissue engineering, and gene therapy allow scientists to explore human health and physiology in brand new ways, with new life-saving treatments already becoming available.
This course explores the potential of these novel technologies, ranging from engineered human heart tissue to the gene-editing tool CRISPR and the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. You will examine what these innovations and developments look like in practice and where they will lead us in the future. We will discuss limitations and ethical considerations. Topics covered will include:
– Animals in biomedical research and how science is turning toward human models
– Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering – organ-on-a-chip, organoids, engineered human tissues
– Cell-based therapies – stem cells and personalised medicine
– Gene therapies and gene editing techniques
– Translating discoveries in the lab to treatments for patients – from preclinical drug testing to human trials
– Ethics of novel therapies – designer babies, data security, and cost; equal access to treatments for all?
We will explore all these topics using real-life examples and case studies of specific treatments and experimental models. Sessions will consist of a lecture section and an interactive part, where we read excerpts from original scientific papers, and discuss research findings, limitations, and ethics. High school level understanding of cell biology is helpful but not required. After this course, you will be able to critically evaluate and contextualise news of novel scientific discoveries and understand current advancements in biomedical research.