| Timeline | Course name | Course# | Credits | Course description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall Semester – Year 1 | Metabolic and Detoxication Mechanisms | VTPP 673 | 3 | Fate of foreign compounds; their inhibitory and antagonistic action toward normal metabolic processes of the animal body. |
| Systemic Physiology I | VTPP 605 | 3 | Aspects of cellular physiology, physiology of excitable membranes, physiology of body fluids, neurophysiology, and the physiology of smooth, cardiac and skeletal muscle; provides a basic understanding of mammalian physiology essential as a framework for advanced graduate studies. | |
| Principles of Human Health Risk Assessment of Chemicals | VTPP 641 | 3 | Principles of toxicology and environmental health with the basic concepts and approaches for conducting human health risk assessment of chemicals; use of different types of data and analysis approaches to conduct both qualitative and quantitative assessments of exposure, human health hazard, dose-response, and risk from chemicals in the environment; introduction to how risk assessment informs risk management decisions such as pollution regulations or hazardous waste cleanups. | |
| Experimental Design in Biology | BIOL 683 | 3 | Design of scientific research projects in the field of biology; a wide range of biological experiments designed with the appropriate statistical technique for analysis; design biological studies that are statistically tractable and perform basic statistical analyses using the statistical programming language R. | |
| Spring Semester – Year 1 | Advanced Toxicology | VTPP 670 | 3 | Detailed overview of organ-specific effects of toxic substances, organ/tissue-oriented modules that will review basic anatomy and physiology, site-specific metabolism of xenobiotics, mechanisms of toxicity and experimental systems that are used to study toxic effects. |
| Practice of Evaluating Human Health Risks of Chemicals | VTPP 645 | 2 | Basic principles of toxicology and environmental health with real-life examples of how diverse types of information are integrated for the purpose of judging what chemical exposures may pose a risk to human health. | |
| Scientific Ethics | VMID 686 | 1 | Ethical issues of research and methods for resolution of such issues; overview of ethical issues encountered by scientists in the conduct and dissemination of their research, in their pursuit of resources, in their interactions with the press and the broader public and resulting from the extension and technological application of their findings. | |
| Pharmacology | VTPP 625 | 3 | Introduction to pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics; survey of major pharmaceutical classes; uses, mechanisms of action and adverse reactions of selected agents. | |
| Fall Semester – Year 2 | Histology | VIBS 602 | 4 | Molecular phenomena placed in context with tissues, organs and organ systems; cell and tissue structures visualized by light microscopy and electron micrographs for functional relationships; clinical correlations reveal relevance of histology in specific disease states; conceptual thinking exercises facilitate problem-solving skills. |
| Journal Club | PHEO 681 | 1 | Review and discussion of contemporary toxicology literature | |
| Toxicology Seminar | VTPP 681 | 1 | Review and discussion of current scientific work in physiology and related subjects. | |
| Elective Course | 3 | |||
Highly Recommended Elective Courses
- VIBS 690 Theory of Research (Proposal Development)
- PHEO 605 Chemical Hazard Exposure (Environmental Focus)
- VTPP 619 Food Toxicology II (Environmental Focus)
- VIBS 611 Tumor Cell Biology and Carcinogenesis (Mechanistic Focus)
Relevant Elective Courses
- PHEB 602 Biostatistics I
- PHEB 603 Biostatistics II
- VIBS 607 Applied Epidemiology
- VIBS 660 Reporting Science and Technology
- VIBS 663 Biomedical Reporting
- VIBS 664 Risk and Crisis Reporting
Environmental Focus
- PHEO 630 Environmental/Occupational Diseases
- PHEO 645 Health and Safety at Hazardous Waste Sites
- CVEN 601 Environmental Engineering Processes III
Mechanistic Focus
Recommended Graduate Certificate
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Certificate (CERT-BICB)