MED0499 - BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

courses

ID:

MED0499

Duration (hours):

84

CFU:

Located in:

Varese - Università degli Studi dell'Insubria

Year:

2025

Date/time interval

Annuale (06/10/2025 - 05/06/2026)

Course Objectives

The integrated course is planned to transmit to future healthcare professionals the logic, the language, and the conceptual foundations of the scientific reasoning. Students are expected to become confident enough in life sciences to be able to reject with conviction ideological or magical thought in the context of one's professional activity. To these aims the course provide the student with the fundamental notions of knowledge and understanding of biological molecules, their characteristics and transformations in human and microbiological processes, under either physiological or pathological conditions.

The integrated course includes the following teachings:

First semester
CHEMISTRY AND PROPAEDEUTIC BIOCHEMISTRY
Credits: 2;
APPLIED BIOLOGY, Credits 1;

Second semester

• BIOCHEMISTRY
Credits: 2
• MEDICAL GENETICS
Credits 1
• GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY
Credits: 1

The specific training objectives are as follows:
- knowledge of the structural and functional principles of biomolecules that regulate the metabolic activities of unicellular and multicellular organisms and of the fundamentals of transmission and expression of genetic information;
- understanding the pathophysiological and metabolic characteristics of the main tissues, organs and systems;
- memorization of the main microorganisms and their metabolism, of the interaction with the human body and of the onset of the main infectious diseases;
- mastering the theory of manipulation modalities of biomolecules and microorganisms;
- understanding of the involvement of biological macromolecules in the development of pathologies and of the biological-molecular foundations of diagnostic tests.

EXPECTED LEARNING RESULTS
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
- recognizing the atomic structure of biological molecules as the basis of their interactions in the physiological environment
- evaluating the characteristics of biological solutions
- discussing energy and kinetic requirements of biological reactions.
- knowing the intracellular organization and organelles
- distinguishing the mitotic and meiotic phases
- Knowing the differences between necrosis and apoptosis
- Describing the biological molecules and define their main chemical-physical characteristics and reactivity on the basis of their structure and the functional groups they contain;
- Remembering and explaining how the transmission of genetic material takes place;
- Indicating the main microorganisms, their behavior, their metabolism and involvement in human pathologies;
- Discussing and analyzing the main methods of manipulation of biomolecules and microorganisms;
- Analyzing the modification of metabolisms in the development of physiological and pathological phenomena and identifying the fundamental junctions at the basis of molecular, biochemical and genetic diagnostic tests.

Course Prerequisites

No specific background is required, but some basic notions of mathematics, including equivalences, proportions, powers, and logarithms. It is important to note that the skills acquired in the first semester are necessary to successfully follow the courses of the second semester.

Students who, despite having passed the admission test to the degree course, have not reached the minimum scores established for the specific disciplines, will be assigned an additional educational obligation (OFA) to be completed within the first year of the course. This obligation, which includes an OFA Recovery Test, will be fulfilled in the ways and terms indicated by the individual teachers at the beginning of the course.

Assessment Methods

The exam of the integrated course consists of a partial test concerning the disciplines carried out in the first semester, and a final one (actual session) with all the remaining ones.

PARTIAL TEST
For the CHEMISTRY AND PROPAEDEUTIC BIOCHEMISTRY module, the test is written and consists of 30 multiple choice quizzes, one of which is exact. Seventeen correct answers are required to obtain a sufficient minimum score.
For the BIOLOGY module, the verification consists of a test with 15 open-ended questions. The result will be expressed in thirtieths.
An oral exam of 5-10’ can follow both partial tests, if the teacher deems it is necessary to better asses the preparation.
FINAL SESSION
The FINAL session of the integrated course is an oral exam in which candidates will be subjected to questions on all the topics covered in the teaching modules.
Regarding BIOCHEMISTRY, there will be two questions:
1. question on metabolism (eg synthesis or degradation of a biological molecule); 2. question about a biochemical process (eg haemostasis, iron cycle, absorption of molecules, etc.).

The MEDICAL GENETICS exam will be an oral exam and will include knowledge and application of the topics covered in class.

Finally, for MICROBIOLOGY, the test will be oral with questions on the entire course program.
The committee will decide the score on the basis of the answers of the candidates in which the following will be evaluated: the degree of knowledge of the subject; the student's ability to make connections between study topics; the degree of personal in-depth study by the student; the property of technical-scientific language.
The final score of the integrated course exam is unique, and represents an average of the assessments obtained in the partial test and final session.
Failure in one discipline compromises the outcome of the entire exam which must be repeated with a new enrollment.