INTD 570

The Interdepartmental (INTD) 570 (formerly Pathology 575): Frontiers in Pathology – Cellular Homeostasis Lecture Series is a 2-unit graduate course offered at the Keck School of Medicine of USC every spring semester. The course is coordinated by Drs. Kinji Asahina, Keigo Machida and Hidekazu Tsukamoto. The fundamental principle of the course is to offer graduate and post-graduate students the opportunities to directly learn from and interact with leading and cutting-edge scientists in respective fields relevant to cellular homeostasis. The class is taught by invited speakers and is open to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and anyone with an interest in the topic.

Course Description

Weekly research lectures by leading investigators in the field of cellular homeostasis held every Thursday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Health Sciences Campus of USC.

Student Attendance

The student attendance will be recorded for all seminars. The last class will be the first Thursday in May. Attendance of a majority of the seminars is required.

Student Comprehension

The student will be required to understand the hypothesis, results obtained and interpretation of the findings presented by each lecturer. Pertinent literature will be available on Blackboard at least one week prior to each lecture. Immediately after each lecture, the students will have a separate Q&A discussion session with the speaker to help promote the understanding of the speaker´s research from both scientific and philosophical view points. Following the lecture series, the student will prepare a 20-min summary presentation on a selected lecture topic. This presentation session will take place in the last 3 classes. Student presentations will be held in MMR 408 (conference room). In addition, the student is required to prepare a term paper on the topic covered by the selected speaker of his/her choice.

Student Evaluation

Each student will be evaluated by:

1. Seminar attendance and participation in discussions (10%)
2. A 20-min summary presentation on the selected paper (40%)
3. A term paper assignment (50%)

Student Presentation

Each PowerPoint presentation should be 20 min summarizing:

1. Background
2. A central hypothesis
3. Key findings presented during a lecture
4. Other studies related to the lecture
5. Interpretation and conclusions including YOUR OWN THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS

Each presentation will be followed by a 10 min question/discussion session. Email your PowerPoint presentation to Maleah O’Connor at Maleah.Oconnor@med.usc.edu or bring a CD or USB memory stick to her office (MMR 412) by 11:00 a.m. of assigned Thursday (dates will be assigned later in the course).

Term Paper

The term paper consists of a discussion on the topic you presented in your PowerPoint presentation. The paper should be 8-10 pages in length, double-spaced, and with the following four requirements:

List and discuss the most critical findings presented in the seminar
Discuss how these findings relate to human health and diseases
Include references (all authors and full titles)
Include half to one page summary of your essay
The term paper is due in Dr. Asahina’s office (MMR 301) on or before the second Friday in May.

Grading

Letter grading (A-C) will be given based on the above criteria.

If you have any questions, please contact the course coordinators:

Course Coordinator: