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Unit of Study MEDC2001 - Immunology (2025)

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Unit Snapshot

  • Unit type

    UG Coursework Unit

  • Credit points

    12

  • Faculty/College

    Faculty of Health

  • Placement

    No

  • Enrolment information

    This unit contains Work Integrated Learning (WIL) that requires students to meet mandatory fit to practice obligations prior to attending. Failure to comply by the fit to practice deadline will result in the cancellation of your WIL and you will not be permitted to continue in this unit. Full details are available at www.scu.edu.au/health/work-integrated-learning.

Unit description

Extends students' knowledge of the immune system, including concepts of innate and acquired immune responses and how specificity, diversity, memory and tolerance develop. Students gain an understanding of various types of immune functions and dysfunctions, and explore these in laboratory investigations. Herein, students learn how to generate, analyse and interpret immunological data to support the clinical diagnostic process.  

Unit content

  1. Foundation concepts of the immune system, including communication, integration and innate and adaptive immunity
  2. Organisation, expression and function of the complement system and immune receptors, including B cell receptors, antibody, T cell receptors and the major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
  3. Humoral and cellular immunity, including B and T cell development, activation, differentiation and memory, with an understanding of the regulation involved
  4. Immune responses to infectious diseases, and an overview of vaccine development
  5. The development of tolerance with the microbiome, and the importance of immune tolerance in tissue transplantation
  6. Overactive and underactive immune system dysfunctions, including allergy, hypersensitivity, chronic inflammation, autoimmunity and immunodeficiency

 

Availabilities

Location Domestic International
Gold Coast
Term2
Term2

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

effectively communicate and compare the immune system development, generation of immune memory and tolerance, and the innate and adaptive divisions and their role in immunity

compare immune cell activation, differentiation and effector responses, including the influence different antigens have on these processes, and on vaccine development

participate with proficiency in a group setting to investigate dysfunctions of the immune system

generate, analyse and interpret experimental immunological data to solve scientific problems in the biomedical setting, individually and in collaboration

Prescribed learning resources

Prescribed Texts
  • Prescribed text information is not currently available.
Prescribed Resources/Equipment
  • Prescribed resources/equipment information is not currently available.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.