Biology 340rm - Colloquium: Topics in Public Health: Resistance--Mechanisms, Causes and Consequences

This colloquium explores a class of phenomena broadly categorized as “resistance.” Specifically, the course asks whether the heterogeneous settings in which that term arises suggest a single underlying mechanism leading to resistance, or conversely, whether disparate phenomena have been inappropriately grouped together under a single rubric. Resistance is a concept has been evoked at all levels of biological (and non-biological) organization, from the viral to the political. The class selects a subset of the settings in which resistance is seen as an important phenomenon and dissects the mechanisms responsible for the origin and spread of resistance. Students explore the phenomena from mechanistic, ecological, and evolutionary perspectives in hopes of detecting both important similarities and telling differences. Enrollment limited to 24. Instructor permission required.