SYLLABUS
Lectures 8:00 - 8:50 AM TTH LS 235
kuperman@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
Office: LS 224; office phone: 594- 0356
Office hours: 1:00 - 2:00 TTH in room 224. Other hours by
appointment. Open lab on some Saturdays
in LSN 235.
GENERAL
PARASITOLOGY (BIOL 596) is a 3 unit course that fulfills the
departmental requirement as an organismal
course.
Course Prerequisites: The course is open to undergraduate and graduate students have completed BIOL 201.
Goals of the Course
· To present a comprehensive course on parasitic organisms from Protozoa to Arthropoda. Parasites of medical and veterinary importance, and parasitic diseases and disorders are the focus of this course.
· To provide practical experience in diagnostics of human and animal parasites.
· To give experience in more specialized subfields by means of an Assigned Paper.
Lectures will give you a basic knowledge in morphology, life
cycles, routes of infection, pathogenesis and immune response, as well as systematic,
ecology and evolution of three major groups of parasites (protozoans,
flatworms, and roundworms) of medical and veterinary importance. Arthropods
will be discussed only as transmitters of one of the above groups. You will
also gain useful information on parasitic diseases of humans and domestic
animals in the
Text: Foundations of
Parasitology (7th Ed.)
Larry S. Roberts & John Janovy,
Jr.
2004 McGraw-Hill.
Copies of the older 6th Edition that you might buy used are
OK too.
Note: Outlines and handouts will be provided before each lecture. If you miss a class, any outlines and handouts will be available upon request.
· Attend all lectures, take notes and refer to text illustration.
· Read the textbook after each lecture and annotate your notes
· Use handouts and outlines of the lecture
I also encourage my students to read some books that help you know more about human and animal parasites (See: List of Literature Recommended). All of these books may be found in the Love Library.
Laboratory sessions will introduce you to practical parasitology. You will focus on gross anatomy, morphology and classification of the most important human and animal parasites. You will do microscopic identification of the stages of parasite life cycle that are diagnostic of infection in humans and animals. You will do dissections and parasitological examination of mollusks, amphibians and fish, and will collect, preserve, and identify parasites found. One of these dissection sessions will give you a topic for a Laboratory Report (See handout: Laboratory Report)
Text: Meyer,
Olsen & Schmidt's Essentials of Parasitology (6th Ed.)
Murray D. Dailey
1996 Wm. C. Brown Publishers
Instructions and
handouts (if necessary) will be provided before each lab session.
Each student has to have a dissection kit that is available at the campus bookstore.
To be successful in this class:
· Attend all lab sessions, keep a lab notebook with raw data and observations
· Carry out the exercises noted in the laboratory schedule
· Provide Laboratory Report
Grading and examination: The final course grade will be determined on the basis of cumulative points earned out of the possible 500 points. Plus and minus grading will be used on the final classes grades.
Points may be earned as follows:
Midterms (2)- 150pts (30%); Final examination (cumulative)- 150 pts (30%); Assigned paper- 50 pts (10%); Practical quizzes (2)- 90pts (18%); Lab notebook- 40 pts (8%); Laboratory Report- 20 pts (4%).
Grading Policy
Letter Grades will be assigned as follows:
A= 90% to 100%; B= 80% to 89.9%; C= 70.0% to 79.9%; D= 60% to 69.9%
(passing grade); F< 60.0%.
If you have to miss lecture exam for any reason please notify the instructor before the exam. Make-up examination will be given if student has a serious reason for missing the scheduled exam. Make-up quizzes are possible.
The regularly scheduled exams will consist of a mixture of short answers, a short
essay question, a case study, fill-in -the blank type questions, and multiple choice. Both midterm exams and the final exam will cover the material given in lectures. Cumulative final exam will include about 70% of the material given during last 4 weeks of the classes, and 30% of the topics covered during the whole semester.
Midterm exams will be graded and exposed to students in classroom within one week after the exam. Both midterm exams and the final exam will be kept by the instructor but may be reviewed by the student upon request. Any questions concerning grading may be discussed with the instructors within one week from the date the grades is distributed in the class.
The quizzes will consist of practical laboratory identification of parasitic organisms from phylum studied. It will include the examination of permanent slides, images of parasites, sometimes of fixed specimens, and their identification. Students are expected to attend all lab sessions for the entire time. Absence from more than 3 labs are an automatic F in the course.
An assigned paper will give you experience in researching topics from parasitological literature (see handout). It has to be submitted to December 6.
Laboratory notebook. Students are required to produce an accurate, informative and tidy record of the day-to-day activities in the lab. See the handout "Laboratory notebook".