Integrated Biomedical Sciences –
Summary
September – October 2025 | Master Biomedical Sciences
Inhoud
History of (interdisciplinarity of) Biomedical Sciences........................................................................ 2
Core Concepts and Processes in Immunology.................................................................................... 3
Techniques to Determine Adaptive Immune Responses..................................................................... 9
Core Concepts and Processes in Neurobiology................................................................................. 12
Research Techniques used in Neurobiology...................................................................................... 17
Core Concepts and Processes in Infectious Diseases.......................................................................19
Techniques used in Infectious Disease............................................................................................. 24
Measles: Immunology & Infectious Disease Mechanisms.................................................................28
Outbreak Policies and Intervention.................................................................................................. 31
International Public Health – Antimicrobial Resistance..................................................................... 33
Epidemiology & Applied Biostatistics I - Introduction.......................................................................35
Epidemiology & Applied Biostatistics I – Measurements...................................................................38
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 1 – Key Concepts................................................................39
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 2 – Descriptive Statistics.....................................................40
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 3 – Inferential Statistics.......................................................40
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 4 – Statistical Tests.............................................................41
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 5 – T-Test.............................................................................43
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 6 – Chi-Square Test.............................................................44
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 7 – Linear Regression..........................................................45
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 8 – Multiple Regression.......................................................46
Innovation and Valorization in Life Sciences..................................................................................... 47
Ethics in Biomedical Science............................................................................................................ 49
Dialogue & Science Communication................................................................................................ 51
Tips for open questions on the exam............................................................................................... 52
,History of (interdisciplinarity of) Biomedical Sciences
There is no real definition of biomedical sciences.
- Biomedicine is a branch of medical science that applies biological and physiological
principles to clinical practice
- Although there is no universally agreed upon definition of biomedicine, its often
conceptualized as the search for therapeutic/medical innovations in the laboratory
In history, usually scientists were generalists. So they knew about everything something, whereas
these days the amount of people who know a lot about something is increasing.
Historical figures in biomedical research
- 17th century
o Boerhave: described the hydraulic system in our body and was interested in how
fluids moved in the human body
o Harvey: first one in Western world to describe the heart as a pump
- 19th century
o Corvisart + Laënec: introduced percussion (Corvisart: percussing chest of lesions,
Laennec: invention of the stethoscope)
At first a lot of resistance, later in the 19th century it became mainstream
o Von Liebig laboratory – Giessen
o Virchow: cellular pathology
‘Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a
large scale’.
o Ernst Abbe: microscope improvement
Koch’s Postulates: four criteria to establish a causal relationship between a microbe and a disease
1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease
but should not be found in healthy organisms
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in culture
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism
4. The microorganism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host
and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent
Reductionism
- Ontological claim that a whole organism is ‘nothing more’ than the sum of its parts
- Epistemological claim that the organism is best explained by reference to its parts
- Methodological claim that the organism is best investigated by its parts
Evidence based medicine is a product of this thinking. This is a great success, as life
expectancy has risen immensely across the globe.
Downside of evidence based medicine
- Statistically significant benefits may be marginal in clinical practice
- Inflexible rules and technology driven prompts may produce care that is management
driven rather than patient centered
- Evidence based guidelines often map poorly to individuals and complex multimorbidity
- Evidence based ‘quality mark’ has been misappropriated by vested interests
- Volume of evidence has become unmanageable
There is need for interdisciplinarity. Improvement of quality of life trough medical innovation
requires active collaboration to ensure pieces of knowledge are together. If nobody takes the great
vaccine, it won’t help against the disease. There is need for collaboration between scientific alfa,
beta and gamma disciplines.
,Integration of disciplines
- From different disciplinary perspectives
- Working on the same complex problem/topic
- Synthesis of concepts and methodologies
Why?
- Improvement of research quality: better aligned with policy needs/for implementation
- Source of inspiration: new combinations lead to innovation
- Address interesting complex scientific questions/topics that cannot be answered
monodisciplinary
Two ways to look at knowledge (biomedical perspective)
- Objectivism: ‘clear’, beta sciences
o Positivism
o Reality can be observed, presents facts as truth, formulation of laws.
- Social constructivism: ‘vague’, alga sciences
o Interpretavism
o Truth and meaning are constructed by researcher, interpretation of the world
Researchers inherently view the world through their frame of reference
- Combination of the two: gamma sciences
Core Concepts and Processes in Immunology
Learning objectives
- Understand the concept of the innate versus the adaptive immune system
- Understand the different receptors and innate immune cells involved in the recognition of
pathogens
- The complement system
- The generation of B and T cells and positive and negative selection
- The requirements of B and T cell activation
- MHC restriction and polymorphism
- The different functions of T effector subsets and antibody isotypes
- The concept of immunological memory
The immune system
- Response against infectious pathogens
- Disturbed immunity/tolerance
o Allergies, autoimmunity
- Artificially induced immune responses
o Vaccination, anti-tumor therapy and transplantation
Lines of defense: 1) barriers, 2) innate response 3) adaptive
response
Different types of pathogens require different defense
mechanisms
- Extracellular pathogens: bacteria, viruses, fungi,
parasites
- Intracellular: viral replication and assembly
There is great diversity in immune cells that belong to the
innate or adaptive immune system.
, Innate Adaptive
Rapid response: within minutes Slow response in days/weeks
Fixed Variable
Limited number of specificities Numerous highly selective
specificities
Constant during the course of the Improve during the course of the
response response
Ready to go: cells/molecules already Cells with right receptors selected
present
Active in the tissue Needs lymphoid organs
Memory!
Inflammation is caused by recognition by the innate immune system.
- Four cardinal signs of inflammation: heat, redness, swelling, pain
o Calor, rubor, tumor, dolor
o Loss of function is fifth sign of inflammation
1. Healthy skin is not inflamed
2. Surface wound introduces bacteria, which activate
resident effector cells to secrete cytokines
3. Vasodilation and increased vascular permeability
allow fluid, protein and inflammatory cells to leave
blood and enter tissue
4. The infected tissue becomes inflamed, causing
redness, heat, swelling and pain
The innate system – soluble components: complement
There are three pathways of complement activation:
1. Alternative route
a. Spontaneous activation
b. Suppressed by ‘self’ pathogens cannot suppress this
activation, which leads to full activation
c. Proteins on the surface of cells
2. Lectin route
a. Mannose binding
b. Lectin (MBL) binds to carbohydrates on pathogen
3. Classical route
a. IgM antibodies
b. C reactive protein (CRP)
c. Via C1q
All complement activation routes converge to C3 activation.
Please look up detailed explanations
Downstream effects of complement activation
- Recruitment of inflammatory cells
- Opsonization of pathogens, facilitating uptake and killing by phagocytes
- Perforation of pathogen cell membranes
Eventually leads to death of the pathogen
The innate system – Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRR):
Cellular innate immune response is mediated by PRRs
- Recognition of Pathogen Associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs) which are conserved
molecular signatures of invading pathodens
o DNA/RNA
o Cell wall components, such as lipids, sugars and proteins
- Discrimination between self and non-self
Summary
September – October 2025 | Master Biomedical Sciences
Inhoud
History of (interdisciplinarity of) Biomedical Sciences........................................................................ 2
Core Concepts and Processes in Immunology.................................................................................... 3
Techniques to Determine Adaptive Immune Responses..................................................................... 9
Core Concepts and Processes in Neurobiology................................................................................. 12
Research Techniques used in Neurobiology...................................................................................... 17
Core Concepts and Processes in Infectious Diseases.......................................................................19
Techniques used in Infectious Disease............................................................................................. 24
Measles: Immunology & Infectious Disease Mechanisms.................................................................28
Outbreak Policies and Intervention.................................................................................................. 31
International Public Health – Antimicrobial Resistance..................................................................... 33
Epidemiology & Applied Biostatistics I - Introduction.......................................................................35
Epidemiology & Applied Biostatistics I – Measurements...................................................................38
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 1 – Key Concepts................................................................39
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 2 – Descriptive Statistics.....................................................40
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 3 – Inferential Statistics.......................................................40
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 4 – Statistical Tests.............................................................41
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 5 – T-Test.............................................................................43
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 6 – Chi-Square Test.............................................................44
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 7 – Linear Regression..........................................................45
Knowledge clip: Applied Biostatistics 8 – Multiple Regression.......................................................46
Innovation and Valorization in Life Sciences..................................................................................... 47
Ethics in Biomedical Science............................................................................................................ 49
Dialogue & Science Communication................................................................................................ 51
Tips for open questions on the exam............................................................................................... 52
,History of (interdisciplinarity of) Biomedical Sciences
There is no real definition of biomedical sciences.
- Biomedicine is a branch of medical science that applies biological and physiological
principles to clinical practice
- Although there is no universally agreed upon definition of biomedicine, its often
conceptualized as the search for therapeutic/medical innovations in the laboratory
In history, usually scientists were generalists. So they knew about everything something, whereas
these days the amount of people who know a lot about something is increasing.
Historical figures in biomedical research
- 17th century
o Boerhave: described the hydraulic system in our body and was interested in how
fluids moved in the human body
o Harvey: first one in Western world to describe the heart as a pump
- 19th century
o Corvisart + Laënec: introduced percussion (Corvisart: percussing chest of lesions,
Laennec: invention of the stethoscope)
At first a lot of resistance, later in the 19th century it became mainstream
o Von Liebig laboratory – Giessen
o Virchow: cellular pathology
‘Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing else but medicine on a
large scale’.
o Ernst Abbe: microscope improvement
Koch’s Postulates: four criteria to establish a causal relationship between a microbe and a disease
1. The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease
but should not be found in healthy organisms
2. The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in culture
3. The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism
4. The microorganism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host
and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent
Reductionism
- Ontological claim that a whole organism is ‘nothing more’ than the sum of its parts
- Epistemological claim that the organism is best explained by reference to its parts
- Methodological claim that the organism is best investigated by its parts
Evidence based medicine is a product of this thinking. This is a great success, as life
expectancy has risen immensely across the globe.
Downside of evidence based medicine
- Statistically significant benefits may be marginal in clinical practice
- Inflexible rules and technology driven prompts may produce care that is management
driven rather than patient centered
- Evidence based guidelines often map poorly to individuals and complex multimorbidity
- Evidence based ‘quality mark’ has been misappropriated by vested interests
- Volume of evidence has become unmanageable
There is need for interdisciplinarity. Improvement of quality of life trough medical innovation
requires active collaboration to ensure pieces of knowledge are together. If nobody takes the great
vaccine, it won’t help against the disease. There is need for collaboration between scientific alfa,
beta and gamma disciplines.
,Integration of disciplines
- From different disciplinary perspectives
- Working on the same complex problem/topic
- Synthesis of concepts and methodologies
Why?
- Improvement of research quality: better aligned with policy needs/for implementation
- Source of inspiration: new combinations lead to innovation
- Address interesting complex scientific questions/topics that cannot be answered
monodisciplinary
Two ways to look at knowledge (biomedical perspective)
- Objectivism: ‘clear’, beta sciences
o Positivism
o Reality can be observed, presents facts as truth, formulation of laws.
- Social constructivism: ‘vague’, alga sciences
o Interpretavism
o Truth and meaning are constructed by researcher, interpretation of the world
Researchers inherently view the world through their frame of reference
- Combination of the two: gamma sciences
Core Concepts and Processes in Immunology
Learning objectives
- Understand the concept of the innate versus the adaptive immune system
- Understand the different receptors and innate immune cells involved in the recognition of
pathogens
- The complement system
- The generation of B and T cells and positive and negative selection
- The requirements of B and T cell activation
- MHC restriction and polymorphism
- The different functions of T effector subsets and antibody isotypes
- The concept of immunological memory
The immune system
- Response against infectious pathogens
- Disturbed immunity/tolerance
o Allergies, autoimmunity
- Artificially induced immune responses
o Vaccination, anti-tumor therapy and transplantation
Lines of defense: 1) barriers, 2) innate response 3) adaptive
response
Different types of pathogens require different defense
mechanisms
- Extracellular pathogens: bacteria, viruses, fungi,
parasites
- Intracellular: viral replication and assembly
There is great diversity in immune cells that belong to the
innate or adaptive immune system.
, Innate Adaptive
Rapid response: within minutes Slow response in days/weeks
Fixed Variable
Limited number of specificities Numerous highly selective
specificities
Constant during the course of the Improve during the course of the
response response
Ready to go: cells/molecules already Cells with right receptors selected
present
Active in the tissue Needs lymphoid organs
Memory!
Inflammation is caused by recognition by the innate immune system.
- Four cardinal signs of inflammation: heat, redness, swelling, pain
o Calor, rubor, tumor, dolor
o Loss of function is fifth sign of inflammation
1. Healthy skin is not inflamed
2. Surface wound introduces bacteria, which activate
resident effector cells to secrete cytokines
3. Vasodilation and increased vascular permeability
allow fluid, protein and inflammatory cells to leave
blood and enter tissue
4. The infected tissue becomes inflamed, causing
redness, heat, swelling and pain
The innate system – soluble components: complement
There are three pathways of complement activation:
1. Alternative route
a. Spontaneous activation
b. Suppressed by ‘self’ pathogens cannot suppress this
activation, which leads to full activation
c. Proteins on the surface of cells
2. Lectin route
a. Mannose binding
b. Lectin (MBL) binds to carbohydrates on pathogen
3. Classical route
a. IgM antibodies
b. C reactive protein (CRP)
c. Via C1q
All complement activation routes converge to C3 activation.
Please look up detailed explanations
Downstream effects of complement activation
- Recruitment of inflammatory cells
- Opsonization of pathogens, facilitating uptake and killing by phagocytes
- Perforation of pathogen cell membranes
Eventually leads to death of the pathogen
The innate system – Pattern Recognition Receptors (PRR):
Cellular innate immune response is mediated by PRRs
- Recognition of Pathogen Associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs) which are conserved
molecular signatures of invading pathodens
o DNA/RNA
o Cell wall components, such as lipids, sugars and proteins
- Discrimination between self and non-self
