This course introduces the essential biological knowledge to students with non-biology background in order for them to understand, explain and evaluate the basic concepts of precision medicine. It uses cancer as a model disease to illustrate how precision medicine can provide better, individually tailored healthcare solutions to patients. The course introduces the methods of discovering the causes of cancer, the techniques to perform accurate diagnoses, the mechanisms of cancer therapies, and the different strategies for cancer treatment. In addition, basic knowledge on immunology, microbiology and infectious diseases will be introduced in this course, topics such as “Viruses,” “Bacteria,” “Immune System,” “DNA analysis” will be added to the existing topics.

CILO-1: Describe the principles of fundamental cellular processes in life. CILO-2: Describe the basis of cancer formation and cancer therapies, and criticize current standard treatments. CILO-3: Explain and differentiate the key concepts in microbiology, immunology, genetics and epigenetics. CILO-4: Evaluate applications of molecular and cellular techniques in biomedical research.