Protozoan and metazoan parasites covered in this course are responsible for classical tropical diseases as well as for emerging opportunistic infections in the US. Parasites are fascinating scientific models, and we will discuss parasitism on the cell and molecular level. Parasites have also proven to be formidable challenges to drug and vaccine development. Why is this, and how might recent advances in parasite cell biology, biochemistry and genomics help to overcome these challenges? The class will meet every week for two lectures and a seminar presenting original papers. Lecturers will include faculty from UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases (CTEGD) the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and additional speakers.There are no pre-requisites and (graduate) students with interest in the molecular biology of infectious diseases without prior training in parasitology are welcome.            

Grading will be A-F and based on course participation (incl. paper presentation in the seminar section), a grant proposal and two grant reviews.