This course covers biological phenomena at or above the scale of a single organism. We will broadly cover topics in evolutionary biology and ecology including but not limited to population genetics, animal behavior, adaptation and natural selection, speciation, phylogenetics, population biology, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and macroecology.

Computational neuroscience has a rich history going back to the original Hodgkin-Huxley model of the action potential and the work of Wilfrid Rall on cable theory and passive dendrites. More recently networks consisting of simple integrate-and-fire neurons have become popular. Nowadays standard simulator software exists to apply these modeling methods, which can then be used to interpret and predict experimental findings. This course introduces some standard modeling methods with an emphasis on simulation of single neurons and synapses and an introduction to integrate-and-fire networks. Each theoretical topic is linked to one or more seminal papers that will be discussed in class. A number of simple exercises using the NEURON simulator will demonstrate single neuron and synapse modeling.

In this course, students will learn basic principles of immunology including the cellular and molecular mechanism of innate and adaptive immunity. The course also provides the clinical importance of immunology in various diseases such as HIV/AIDS, autoimmunity, and allergy. Then, students will learn how the immune response can be manipulated by vaccination to combat infectious diseases and cancer.