Courses

• GMS BC 600: Biology, Chemistry and Physics of Natural and Man-made Hazards
  This course provides a broad overview of physical, chemical and biological aspects of man-made and natural hazards. Hazards range from the everyday-thunderstorms, winter, chemical spills, disease clusters-to the extraordinary-powerful hurricane, earthquakes, dirty bombs, and pandemic. This course will teach details essential to every healthcare emergency manager to prepare for known and emerging threats, including threats to the infrastructure essential to healthcare delivery. Emphasis will be placed on the increasing number of technological hazards, both those that may be intentionally introduced to those created because of the international connectivity provided by airplanes. Discussion will include the short, medium and long term impact to human populations and infrastructures of the various hazards and the impacts on triage and triage decision making processes. 3 cr
• GMS BC 610: Medical Consequences of Natural and Man-made Hazards
  This course provides a broad overview of medical consequences of man-made and natural hazards. Hazards can directly impact people's lives, as well as indirectly by damaging an area's health infra-structure. This course will teach details essential to every healthcare emergency manager to prepare for known and emerging threats, including discussing external and internal hazards to healthcare emergency management. Emphasis will be placed on human population effects, and the wide range of multiple interdependent aspects of social, cultural and physical infrastructures. Discussion will include the short, medium and long term impact on healthcare delivery, including the importance of psychological concerns such as morale and post-event counseling. 3 cr
• GMS BC 620: Psychology and Sociology of Disasters and Methods of Risk Communication
  This course surveys psychological and social factors affecting community and individual responses to disasters. Emphasis is placed on groups who may experience greater impact as a result of disability, social, economic, or racial disparities. This course explores the methods of risk communications to diverse audiences including considerations of subjectivity of risk, translating complex concepts into clear concise informative messages, and recognizing time sensitivity of information. 3 cr
• GMS BC 630: Ethical & Policy Issues in Health and Medical Services Emergency Management
  This course explores the complex issues surrounding ethical, legal and policy issues concerning health and health care delivery under crisis conditions. Issues evaluated include end-of-life decision making, implications of triage, medical malpractice, insurance company regulation and liability. Additionally, the interrelationships of the various levels, and often competing branches, of government will be evaluated. 3 cr
• GMS BC 650: Community Health and Emergency Management
  Public Health is a multidisciplinary field that aims to prevent disease and death and to promote a healthy quality of life. Public Health surveillance, intervention, and evaluation intervene at the population and societal level, taking on the effort to advance the health and safety of the greatest amount of people. This course will explore the multiple concentrations of public health, focusing on epidemiology and environmental health. In order to understand what public health is and how it should be applied during an emergency, this course will discuss specific epidemiological disasters in history, the scientific and statistical perspective associated with collecting, analyzing, interpreting and utilizing data, and the interconnectedness that is required to rapidly evaluate and manage disasters. 3 cr
• GMS BC 692: Directed Study
  Var cr
• GMS BC 700: The Disaster Lifecycle
  This course focuses on examining health needs and health care delivery methods to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate impacts of crises. Preparedness consists of being ready for any kind of emergency no matter what the source of the disaster. Practically this means looking at preparedness from an all-hazards perspective and developing the complicated array of policies, methods and programs. Disaster response is a complicated multi-institutional operation requiring sophisticated planning, logistics and communications. Response planning emphasizes the interface and coordination requirements of the National Response Framework. Recovery involves all the necessary actions to reinstate normal operations including reconstitution of necessary data, hardware, software, personnel, supplies and facilities. Recovery actions are focused on issues and decisions that occur after immediate response needs are addressed. Current and proposed Federal, state, local and private nonprofit disaster recovery methods are discussed. This course addresses these issues through discussion of the cycle of planning, training, equipping, exercising and mission continuity processes and reviewing case studies of current and past governmental and private methods. 3 cr
• GMS BC 710: Methods and Practices of Incident Command
  This course examines command and control processes, including Incident and Unified Command Structures, under crisis and disaster management situations for health and medical services. Use of simulations tools will be accomplished (such as Incident Commander: A Crisis Training Simulation) to provide training of community management level incident command actions, based on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) mandated command structures articulated in the National Incident Management System. Additionally, decision making under uncertainty and emerging social and operational network theory will be evaluated and discussed. 3 cr
• GMS BC 730: Principles, Methods, and Practices of Modeling and Simulation
  This course involves instructing students in various methods and practices of modeling and simulation with specific focus on applicability to biomedical health and medical services crisis management. Using estimates and probability of events students will design dynamic simulation modeling support tools to aiding in measures to be taken to prevent, mitigate, and recover from a disaster. Specific modeling applications to be performed will be through a unique hands-on experience in the development and use of computer-based models to study policy- and decision making. The STELLATM software system will be used in the course. 3 cr
• GMS BC 971: Research Practicum and Thesis I - Designing Crisis Management Research
  This is the first phase of a directed research and development project in biomedical crisis management. During this course students identify an area of the crisis management process on which to perform research and design a modeling and simulation exercise. 2 cr
• GMS BC 972: Research II
  This is the capstone course for the Program. Utilizing the base of knowledge gained throughout the previous year, and applying learned methods in modeling and simulation, this practicum provides the student with an opportunity to perform a guided research activity focused on health care under crisis. 2 cr
• GMS BI 751: Biochemistry and Cell Biology
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  Basic principles and concepts of medical school-level biochemistry and cell biology in a one-semester course. Topics include protein structure and function mechanisms of enzyme action nutrition and metabolism membrane structure and receptor signaling cell cycle regulation DNA and RNA structure and function regulation of gene expression and techniques in molecular medicine. Clinical correlations are provided throughout the course. 6 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS BI 752: General Biochemistry and Cell Biology
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  This course introduces general concepts in metabolism, signaling, cell biology, and nucleic acids. 4 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS BI 776: Gene Targeting in Transgenic Mice
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  Introduction to the basic theory and practice of an approach applicable to many cell biology problems. The following topics are covered: early mouse development gene targeting into mouse embryos homologous recombination in embryonic stem cells review of practical aspects of the transgenic technology review of selected studies employing transgenic mice and chimeric (gene knockout) mice. Offered alternate years. 2 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS BI 777: Techniques in Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  Success in biomedical research requires proposing, developing and testing a novel hypothesis. The generation of a novel hypothesis in turn requires the ability to apply the scientific method and then implement the appropriate techniques to address the experimental question. This course will complement the Foundations in Biomedical Sciences (FiBS) curriculum by providing students with a comprehensive understanding of the core experimental methods used in biomedical research. By the end of this course students will master the concepts behind a wide range of experimental techniques and technologies and then be prepared to apply the most appropriate experimental system to a given biological question. Biochemical knowledge regarding "how things work" and "how to cook from scratch in the lab" will enable students to develop their own experimental research strategies. Specific topics to be covered in the Fall 2014 include: the scientific method/lab basics, cell culture and gene transfer, protein extraction and analysis, DNA and cloning, PCR, DNA-protein interactions and chromatin, RNA and quantitative PCR, lipids, transgenic and knockout mice, mass spectrometry, flow cytometry, microarray and next generation sequencing, histology and confocal microscopy. This course is team taught and will use lectures, in class discussions, and focused problem sets. A concise final written assignment is designed to test the students' mastery of the subject matter.
• GMS BI 778: Molecular Mechanisms of Cardiovascular Disease
  The course deals with research topics relevant to cardiovascular disease including lipoproteins, atherosclerosis, oxidative stress, diabetes, hypertension, congenital heart abnormalities, gene therapy, stem cell therapies and others. Emphasis is placed on molecular and cellular mechanisms of normal vascular function and of vascular dysfunction leading to disease. Each session is taught by an expert in the field. The faculty includes several visitors from other US universities. Each student presents an original paper assigned by the instructors and writes and presents a review. 2 cr, Fall sem.
• GMS BI 787: Molecular Mechanisms of Growth and Development
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  Examines the most recent advances in the molecular mechanisms involved in regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation, and development. Control of the cell cycle and regulation of the expression of differentiated function are discussed. The role of extracellular growth factors and nuclear transcriptional regulatory proteins are explored. Students present and actively discuss recent primary research articles. Offered alternate years. 2 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS BI 789: Methods and Modeling in Molecular Biochemistry
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  This course teaches the concepts and approaches necessary to model and treat molecular/cellular processes using physical tools and methods including computational strategies. Competence in research methods and modeling approaches enabling exploration and quantification of biological systems is the course goal. 2 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS BI 793: Mass Spectrometry, Proteomics and Functional Genomics
  Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor
  The application of mass spectrometry to protein, glycoconjugate and carbohydrate structures has propelled developments in proteomics and functional genomics. This course describes how to use mass spectrometry to answer structural and functional questions in biomedical research. The course explores the background necessary to effectively design mass spectrometric (MS) experiments and interpret data. Students gain a full understanding of modern MS and its effective use in their research. Lectures are devoted to instrumentation, ionization methods and applications to proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, glycoconjugates, nucleic acids and uses of the technology in proteomics, biotechnology and medicine. 2 cr, Spring sem.
• GMS BI 854: Biochemistry Student Seminar
  Required for all Department of Biochemistry MA, PhD and MD/PhD students. Students present and discuss the current literature in molecular and cellular biochemistry. The objective of this course is to develop oral presentation and critical thinking skills. 2 cr, Fall & Spring sem.