Genomic Medicine

Course Structure

1. Core Concepts in Human Genetics and Genomics, providing all of the basic genomic science knowledge required by later modules including genomic architecture, regulatory systems, genetic variation, function and how this impacts upon disease processes and clinical outcomes. This module is offered twice in each 12-month cycle.
2. Omics Technologies and their Application to Genomic Medicine, providing an in depth description of the genomic techniques that are used to assess genomic variation in clinical problems. It will allow you to critically evaluate which techniques might be used and their limitations in analysing different disease states.
3. Application of Genomics in Infectious Disease will explain how pathogen genomics can inform the epidemiology of infections, impact upon drug development and resistance, lead to novel diagnostics/therapeutics/stratified healthcare, and provide insights into host susceptibilities to infection.
4. Molecular Pathology of Cancer and Application in Cancer Diagnosis, Screening and Treatment (delivered by the Institute of Cancer Research) will explain the principles of cancer genomics, including predisposition, diagnosis, classification, treatment and patient monitoring with particular emphasis on how genomic analysis impacts these factors and the ethical issues relevant to cancer.
5. Ethical, Legal and Social Issues in Applied Genomics will explain the principles and subtleties of ethics in evaluating genetic/genomic data with an emphasis on emerging genomics technologies and the ways that ethics issues are handled in various countries.
6. Genomics of Common and Rare Inherited Diseases will explain different types of genetic variation, their contribution to rare and complex disease, how they are detected (with particular emphasis upon the 100,000 Genomes Project), interpreted and communicated.
7. Either Bioinformatics, Quality Control, Analysis & Interpretation of Genome Sequencing Data, providing the principles of computational DNA sequence analysis, including sequence alignment methods and statistical tests, to identify and correctly communicate pathogenic mutations and assess possible functions through database and network programs) OR the less computationally intense Genomics and the Patient module, which will concentrate on the identification and interpretation of final Next Gen DNA sequencing reports with an emphasis on calculating genetic risk and ethical considerations.