Tumor Microenvironment

Catalog description

This course is designed for second year (and up) graduate students interested in learning about the tumor microenvironment. The course will cover the main players of the tumor microenvironment field (stroma, vasculature and immune cells) and emphasize the connections between the basic biology of the tumor microenvironment to potential therapeutic intervention. The goals of this course are to enrich scientific culture, train for clear and concise oral presentations, improve grant-writing skills, and develop critical thinking, professional composure, and discussion skills. The course will be divided into 4 broad topic areas. The course will begin with didactic lectures presented with overviews of Immunology, Stromal cells and extracellular matrix, and Angiogenesis/Endiothelial cells. After that each session will be student run and consist of one hour of presentation of a didactic background lecture regarding the salient points of that week's topic, followed in the second hour by a discussoion of a primary research paper(s) to be read in advance of the session by all class participants. Discussions will include specific technical background needed for the paper, presentation of the KEY data in the paper, leading discussion on the data and conclusions drawn from the paper and putting them in the context of the state of the field. Specific requirements for students incude: - One to two presentations throughout the course. Students will be guided in choosing the approprioate depth of background nd topic area and ingiving formal presentations and constructive criticism of scientigic data. - Submission of a discussion point each week that a student is not presenting, due the night before class. -A Specific Aims Page for a grant using one of his or her two presentations as "preliminary data" or their own research project provided it is related to the tumor microenvironment…