Disease and Human Ancestry.

Catalog description

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. This course introduces the role that disease has played in human existence. A key part of this understanding comes from new DNA sequencing and genomic data analysis tools that provide information about our ancestry and origin, as well as about the ancestry and history of disease organisms that have co-evolved with us. The vast amount of new data has opened controversial doors to social and ethical implications, such as questions of race and discrimination, and teach us how to fight emerging disease at local and global levels. This course will discuss these topics through case examples of different diseases from parasites (e.g., malaria), bacteria (e.g., bubonic plague, tuberculosis and syphilis) and viruses (e.g., smallpox, influenza and AIDS).