Department of Immunology and Biotechnology · Education

Teaching of "Basic Immunology" as a separate subject for undergraduate medical students and biologists began in 1991. The curriculum contains 28 lectures and 14 times 2 hours laboratory practices during a semester. The subject covers the most important knowledge about basic molecular and cellular elements of the immune system, the main functional regulation of the physiological immune response, and some of the most important basic immunopathological phenomena.

A shorter course on basic immunology is organized for pharmacist students and a separate course for biology teachers (28 - 28 hours in one semester). The exams are multiple choice-type written tests. Teaching the “Biotechnology” as a new subject for biologists started in 2001 in collaboration with the Faculty of Natural Sciences. The curriculums of “Pharmaceutical Biotechnology” and “Medical Biotechnology” are under elaboration.

From the year 2004/2005 new “credit” type education is introduced at the undergraduate level. These courses were at first “Immunopathology” and “Immunological methods”. Further two were estabilished: “Medical biotechnology” in 2005 and “Allergology“ in 2007.

The PhD program of the Department was endorsed – as a subprogram of the immunology group - amongst the first postgraduate courses in the country. The training program involves theoretical and methodological courses. The theoretical course covers the field of current molecular and cellular immunobiology, while the methodological course gives insight to the field of up-to-date immunotechniques for young scientists, together with laboratory practices for enhancing hand skills. Several PhD students from the other doctoral programs were interested in both the theoretical and the methodological courses during the last decade.

The senior scientists of the Department participate regularly as invited lecturers in different postgraduate seminars and courses on clinical immunology and immunobiology organized by other institutions all around the country.