Syllabus database for doctoral courses
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Syllabus database for doctoral courses
SYLLABI FOR DOCTORAL COURSES
| Swedish title | Obotlig cancer |
|---|---|
| English title | Incurable Cancers |
| Course number | 5520 |
| Credits | 1.5 |
| Responsible KI department | Institutionen för biovetenskaper och näringslära |
| Specific entry requirements | Recommended: Basic course in tumor biology and oncology or similar |
| Grading | Passed /Not passed |
| Established by | The Committee for Doctoral Education |
| Established | 2021-09-14 |
| Purpose of the course | This translational course is designed for PhD students and junior postdocs that wish to connect their knowledge on tumor biology to clinical reality. The students will learn about the clinical behavior of cancers that are particularly hard to treat, including carcinomas of the lung, pancreas, esophagus, and liver.
The course provides a basic historical overview of efforts to treat these cancers and will discuss the possible reasons for failure to make significant progress. A focus will then lie on novel developments that in recent years have begun to spark significant improvements in the treatment of “incurable cancers”. By connecting molecular tumor biology and clinical reality, the course shall inspire the student to develop their own approaches to cure potentially “incurable” cancers. |
| Intended learning outcomes | After completion of the course, the students should be able to:
- Appreciate the complexity of cancers and differentiate between tumor types with a generally good and bad prognosis - Reflect on the reasons why treatment of some cancer types has been particularly challenging - Describe the basics of the most important treatment strategies in oncology and how they failed for specific cancer types - Present an overview of recent improvements in cancer treatment on a molecular level, and their effects on cancers that are regarded hard to treat. |
| Contents of the course | This course will provide information on clinical treatment strategies and introduce the concept of incremental progress that has driven developments in oncology for decades. It will discuss why conventional treatments that are successful for some cancers, fail in others.
Then, the course will cover clinically important examples of tumor types that challenge the paradigm of incremental progress, and introduce novel therapies from a more preclinical perspective. |
| Teaching and learning activities | Seminars by clinicians (oncologists and surgeons) and by basic researchers. Group discussions and staged “Molecular Tumor Boards”, in which preclinical knowledge will be applied to clinical patient cases. Field visits to the hospital. |
| Compulsory elements | Attendance to all the activities of the course and the oral examination are mandatory. Absence from mandatory parts of the course will have to be compensated for by other activities after discussion with the course leaders. |
| Examination | Active participation in the Molecular Tumor Board discussions and the seminars, where the student shall demonstrate the ability to discuss general concepts of cancer therapy.
To pass the course, the participant is required to: - Complete all assignments and participate actively in group discussions during the course. - Pass an oral examination on the concluding day. |
| Literature and other teaching material | Mandatory reading:
- Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2019, Miller et al., CA Cancer J Clin. 2019 Sep;69(5):363-385. doi: 10.3322/caac.21565. Epub 2019 Jun 11. - Treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) Zarogoulidis et al, J, J Thorac Dis. 2013 Sep; 5(Suppl 4): S389–S396. doi: 10.3978/j.issn.2072-1439.2013.07.10 - The Effect of Advances in Lung-Cancer Treatment on Population Mortality Howlader et al., N Engl J Med 2020; 383:640-649 doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1916623 Recommended reading (not required for the course): “The Emperor of all Maladies”, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2011 “The First Cell: And the Human Costs of Pursuing Cancer to the Last”, Azra Raza, 2019 |
Course responsible |
Marco Gerling Institutionen för biovetenskaper och näringslära 0764167435 marco.gerling@ki.se Hälsovägen 4 NEO, research group MGE 14183 Huddinge |
| Contact person |
