BIOL 574 - Virology

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the field of virology. In the first part of the course students will learn about the discovery of viruses and important findings that have greatly impacted human health and the fields of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry. We will then dive into the molecular nature of viral genomes and their replication strategies. In the last part of the course students will learn about the battle between the virus and the host and the bizarre chain of immunological events that follows infection of a host organism with a specific virus. Core concepts in innate and adaptive immune responses will be introduced to allow for in depth discussions about viral pathogenesis, vaccines, and anti-viral therapeutics. The field of virology is very broad and constantly changing and therefore cannot be completely covered in a one-semester course. However, it is the sincere goal of the instructor of this course to provide students with the tools that will allow them to further their knowledge of viruses on their own and enable them to initiate meaningful discussions with others. Scientific communication skills (both written and verbal) are of upmost importance and will be stressed throughout the course. Students will also participate in class discussions of current virology topics. Graduate students will apply knowledge gained in the lecture portion of the course by leading class discussions of primary literature topics relevant to the course. The instructor will assign a current journal article related to material being covered in class. With the instructors supervision the graduate student will then create a class discussion activity related to the journal article. The Graduate student will then be responsible for furthering the class’s knowledge of the topic during a journal club presentation and by leading a class discussion activity. At the end of the semester all students will research a virus of interest to them using primary literature and texts available through Hunter library. Students will write a report on their findings as well as present them orally to class. Students will be expected to demonstrate a mastery of all topics covered in the course and clearly communicate this knowledge to their fellow classmates through their presentation and written report.

The laboratory component of this course is designed to safely give students hands on experience working with viruses. While working with locally isolated bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) students will learn basic virological techniques such as sterile technique, virus culture, virus stock growth, and infectious virus particle quantification/purification methodologies. Each student in the class will work with their own unique bacteriophage and thus results between different students in the class are expected to vary. Class discussions and data comparisons between students will facilitate a greater understanding of the potential experimental outcomes of the techniques applied in the course. All students will then complete an experimental series using their own stock of bacteriophage. During this experimental series students will learn and apply assorted molecular biology techniques such as DNA purification, restriction enzyme analysis, cloning, PCR, and Sanger sequencing. Students will evaluate the results of their experiments to first identify which bacteriophage they are working with, and then further the knowledge of their bacteriophage using partial sequence comparisons with other known mycobacteriophages with the goal of putative cluster placement. Graduate students will then plan and conduct their own experimental series (wet lab or bioinformatics based) using available bacteriophages that will be expected to contribute to the mycobacteriophage program recently started at WCU by Dr. Gainey, Dr. Wallen, and Megan Eckardt. At the conclusion of the laboratory portion students will write a comprehensive report to communicate the results of their experimental laboratory series. In addition students will also gain some experience working in a biological safety cabinet while learning mammalian tissue culture.

Credits 4