Molecular Medicine (Master of Science)

The innovative Master's programme in Molecular Medicine is characterised by interdisciplinarity, practice orientation, and internationality, with the ambition to qualify future excellent scientists for medical research. A particular strength of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tübingen is research in the prominent focus areas of neurosciences, immunology, oncology, and infection biology. Training in these focus areas (each student chooses two specialised fields out of four) is offered by experts in one of these disciplines. Immunology: exploring the specialist field of immunology will allow students to gain a sound knowledge of the complex processes involved in the regulation of cellular and immunological processes in both humans and animals. The immunological processes are thus examined in association with disease-induced malfunctions, for example, in the case of immunity defects or in tumour immunology. The lectures in the series "Advanced Immunology" cover the detailed mechanisms of the immune system, including an examination of the recent discoveries made in cellular and molecular immunology. The main lecture comprises the evolution of immune systems, therapeutic antibodies, computational immunobiology, antigen processing, cellular communication, negative and positive regulatory mechanisms in immunity, interaction between immune systems, and pathogens and pathomechanisms. Infection Biology: viral infections, the threat of pandemics, and the emergence of antibiotic resistance have made clear the enormity of the unmet medical needs in infectious diseases. In Tübingen, special emphasis is currently being placed on issues such as the development of new antibiotics, malaria, and viral oncogenesis. The Departments of Medical Microbiology, Virology, and Tropical Medicine meet this need by harnessing the current explosion of new information about the basic biology of pathogens and host responses in order to develop novel therapeutics to combat serious infections. The main lecture series in this area covers molecular mechanisms related to bacterial, viral, and parasite pathogenesis as well as experimental strategies to explore them in the area of major topics in the field of infectious diseases. Oncology: cancer is a frequently occurring, complex disease with an increasing incidence and a high socio-economic impact. Both the lecture on Advanced Oncology and the other courses in this area are intended to provide further knowledge on the molecular basis of tumour development and molecular approaches to pathology and diagnostics as well as molecular strategies in cancer therapy. Based on the topics to be addressed, students will acquire a solid understanding of the state of the art in molecular and translational oncology with respect to molecular mechanisms of cancer development, molecular pathology and diagnostics, and molecular strategies in cancer therapies. Neurosciences: the scope of neuroscience has expanded to include different approaches used to study the molecular structure of the nervous system, as well as neurological disorders. The main lecture series in this area places considerable emphasis on the molecular and cellular pathomechanisms of the most common dementias and other neurodegenerative disorders, especially Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.