Cellular Basis of Disease

Learning outcome 1: Critically evaluate current research literature relating to the control of key cellular processes to explain disease development mechanisms and disease pathophysiology.

Learning outcome 2: Analyse, report and evaluate laboratory experiments to assess changes in gene expression in cells, including appropriate statistical tests.

1. Demonstrate an in depth understanding of the scientific basis of human health and disease, and be able to apply this knowledge to explain current diagnosis and management of common infectious and non-communicable diseases.

2. Demonstrate understanding of the clinical specialisms in biomedical science, namely cellular pathology, clinical biochemistry, immunology, medical microbiology, haematology and transfusion sciences, and the impact of advancing genomic knowledge on future advances in diagnosis and therapy in these areas.

3. Perform a wide range of regularly used laboratory techniques competently, with due regard to health and safety, appropriate experimental design and data recording.

4. Access, synthesise, critically analyse and present scientific information in multiple formats, suitable for diverse audiences.

5. Analyse and interpret data from a range of different sources, using appropriate digital technology, including large data sets.

6. Apply problem solving strategies in a variety of situations and be able to propose creative solutions.

Section 2- Detail of the Assessment task

You need to report, analyse and present your research findings in a laboratory report.

A patient is presenting with lower back pain, haematuria and loss of appetite. As such a clinician believes the patient may have kidney disease/cancer. You have been asked to investigate in the lab.

In laboratory sessions you will perform H&E stains, immunophenotying assays and qPCR.
• H&E will provide a picture of the microanatomy of a healthy kidney vs a diseased kidney.
• Immunophenotyping will provide the basis of disease diagnosis.
• qPCR will show if the carcinoma cells are signalling to the parenchymal (normal) cells.

This report will need to include an introduction, justification of methods, results and discussion. Word counts for each sections are suggestions only.

Introduction (450 words) - should contain a critical review of the literature surrounding renal cell carcinomas and more specifically clear cell renal cell carcinoma (correct reference citation using APA formatting).
• Review of clear cell renal cell carcinoma pathophysiology
• Epithelial and mesenchymal transition, should integrate cell-cell adhesion within the development of clear cell renal cell carcinoma.
• Case study introduced
• Aims included

Justification of methods (350 words) - You will undertake 4 lab sessions these are histology, immunophenotyping, cell culture and qPCR.
• Explain the research design of the study, think about outcomes of the experiments.
• Briefly integrate in the underlying theory.

Results (450 words) -Descriptive text with integrated Figures/Table. The results should be presented in a logical order and Figures/Tables should be clearly presented and labelled. Data will be available through Aula.
• For each experiment/figure: (a) briefly introduce what you did and why; (b) then show the Figure/Table; (c) then clearly describe the Figure. The data that should be presented is H&E staining of healthy vs control, immunophenotyping data healthy vs control and your qPCR data (with melt curve)
• Do not include any raw data or calculations, you may need to refer to this in text but should not feature in the results section.

Discussion (750 words) - You should critically review your data and explain your results using molecular pathways. This section should be driven by the literature.
• Initially (briefly) review main aims and integrate in main findings.
• Explain what your results show but more importantly link to literature to explain your results i.e. how does your qPCR data for E-cadherin link to cell cycle progression.
• Your results indicate cancer cells are signalling to "normal" kidney cells, what is the importance of this.
• You should explain importance of your result for the patient, i.e. possible diagnosis and prognosis based on your research findings.

Section 3: Help and Support
Workshops from the semester had a focus on writing a laboratory report and data analysis (weeks 1-6). Week 6 workshop directly discusses the coursework.
There will be drop-in sessions to directly help with data analysis and lab report writing during the resit semester.
Post on Aula discussion forum for questions.

Attachment:- Cellular Basis of Disease.rar