This course enhances cross-cultural understanding through the discussion of practical, ethical, and epistemological issues in conducting social science and applied research in foreign countries or unfamiliar communities. It includes a research practicum to help students develop interviewing, participant-observation, and other qualitative research skills, as well as critical discussion of case studies. The course is open to all interested students, but intended particularly for those planning to undertake exploratory research or applied work abroad. Students taking the graduate version complete additional assignments.

Using a website simulation tool, students build on their understanding of random processes on networks to interact with the graph of a social network of individuals and simulate the spread of a disease. They decide which two individuals on the network are the best to vaccinate in an attempt to minimize the number of people infected and "curb the epidemic." Since the results are random, they run multiple simulations and compute the average number of infected individuals before analyzing the results and assessing the effectiveness of their vaccination strategies.

Students learn about biomedical engineering while designing, building and testing prototype surgical tools to treat cancer. Students also learn that if cancer cells are not removed quickly enough during testing, a cancerous tumor may grow exponentially and become more challenging to eliminate. Students practice iterative design as they improve their surgical tools during the activity.

In the trilogy of D-Lab courses, D-Lab: Dissemination focuses on disseminating innovations among underserved communities, especially in developing countries. Students acquire skills related to building partnerships and piloting, financing, implementing, and scaling-up a selected innovation for the common good. The course is structured around MIT and outside competitions. Teams develop an idea, project or (social) business plan that is "ready to roll" by term's end. Course includes an on-line forum discussion board, student-led case studies and a final proposal or business plan for realizing your dream innovation.

D-Lab Development addresses issues of technological improvements at the micro level for developing countries—in particular, how the quality of life of low-income households can be improved by adaptation of low cost and sustainable technologies. Discussion of development issues as well as project implementation challenges are addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with mostly local level organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Project team meetings focus on developing specific projects and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the countries and localities to be visited as well as an introduction to the local languages.

D-Lab: Water, Climate Change, and Health is a project-based, experiential, and transdisciplinary course. Together with peers and experts, we will explore the vitally important interface of water, climate change, and health. This course addresses mitigation and adaptation to climate change as it pertains to water and health. Water-borne illness, malnutrition, and vector-borne diseases represent the top three causes of morbidity and mortality in regions of our focus. Students submit a term project, setting the stage for a lifelong commitment to communicating climate science to a broad public.

D-Lab: Water, Climate Change, and Health is a project-based, experiential, and transdisciplinary course. Together with peers and experts, we will explore the vitally important interface of water, climate change, and health. This course addresses mitigation and adaptation to climate change as it pertains to water and health. Water-borne illness, malnutrition, and vector-borne diseases represent the top three causes of morbidity and mortality in regions of our focus. Students submit a term project, setting the stage for a lifelong commitment to communicating climate science to a broad public.

Although there is clear potential to improve science and innovation systems through big data and open science, barriers still remain with respect to data sharing efforts. How can the available massive and diverse data collections be used and shared more efficiently to boost global research and innovation and improve care? What actions are needed to facilitate open access to research data generated with public funding?

The OECD is bringing together policy makers, funding agencies and researchers to tackle the issue of open access to data, focused around developing good practice and principles on data governance. Four case studies highlight best practice and identify barriers to progress.

Following an OECD-hosted consultation with the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI), the United Kingdom Medical Research Council (MRC), and the US Alzheimer’s Association, two concrete examples of global data sharing have been created. The first, focused on providing a wealth of open-source biomedical data for the community (deep data), builds upon GAAIN, the Global Alzheimer’s Association Interactive Network, and links eleven international partners through a federated network of data resources. The capability of this network is being extended significantly through connections with the French National Alzheimer’s Database (BNA), the European Medicines Informatics Framework (EMIF), and the Canadian based Longitudinal Online Research and Imaging System (LORIS). The second focused on linking big data approaches at the population level (broad data), is a complementary collaboration between the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Ageing and the Dementias Platform UK to share and analyse large-scale complex population-wide datasets from up to 2 million individuals, including imaging, genomics and health data.

As a result, these collaborations will enable the aggregation of an unprecedented volume of individual and population-level data, offering an open science solution to help research to more efficiently tackle Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

In this visualization adapted from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, discover the role that dengue viral proteins play in a human cell as the virus prepares to replicate.

This design course targets the solution of clinical problems by use of implants and other medical devices. Topics include the systematic use of cell-matrix control volumes; the role of stress analysis in the design process; anatomic fit, shape and size of implants; selection of biomaterials; instrumentation for surgical implantation procedures; preclinical testing for safety and efficacy, including risk/benefit ratio assessment evaluation of clinical performance and design of clinical trials. Student project materials are drawn from orthopedic devices, soft tissue implants, artificial organs, and dental implants.

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your body doesn’t make or use the hormone insulin properly. It causes too much blood glucose (sugar) to build up in the blood.

The aim of this presentation is to address different hot topics in our current understanding of aetiology as well as of the pathophysiology of Type 2 Diabetes. We’ll address how genetic as well as epi-genetic and non-genetic mechanisms may be involved in the complex mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes. We’ll also introduce recent data suggesting that immature stem-cell functions are likely to play an important role for development of type 2 diabetes and its associated cardiometabolic disturbances. Finally we’ll address the current treatment options of disease with respect of both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment modalities.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This presentation address the multifactorial etiology of type 2 diabetes. The multifactorial etiology, can be divided into three major categories, primary predisposing factors, secondary precipitating factors, as well as tertiary accelerating factors.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

The aim of this presentation is to address and understand the paradigm shifting consequences of the Thrifty Phenotype Hypothesis as a conceptual framework to understand the roots of type 2 diabetes.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

During the last couple of decades two new remarkably successful principles for diabetes therapy have appeared and are now used worldwide. These are incretin based therapy and surgical therapy. These two are at some extent linked together and in this lecture we’ll provide an introduction to these two principles for diabetes therapy.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

In this presentation we’ll talk about the effects of GLP-1 (Glucagon Like Peptide 1), GLP-1 has important actions on gastrointestinal secretion and motility, and it acts to inhibit appetite and food intake. In continuation of the effects of GLP-1, we’ll talk about GLP-1, GIP, lipids, proteins, and dipeptidyl peptidase-4.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This presentation talks about intravenously GLP-1 infusion to patients with type 2 diabetes. The GLP-1 infusion is capable of restoring fasting glucose concentrations during the night time and can nearly normalize the meal-induced glucose excursions after meal ingestion. GLP-1 has many attractive actions regarding diabetes type 2 treatment, which is the theme of this presentation.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This presentation provides an introduction to some of the basic aspects of the epidemiology of diabetes. In continuation of this we’ll discuss why diabetes is such a serious disease and what the biological mechanics of the disease are.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This presentation will look at how the distribution of diabetes is, thus we’ll discuss how the distribution of diabetes are by type, gender, age, geographical region and ethnicity. The purpose of this discussion is to understand how serious a health problem the global epidemic of diabetes is, while increasing the understanding that it’s extremely necessary that we do whatever we can to fight against the diabetes epidemic in the future.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst

This presentation tries to identify the most important risk factors for developing diabetes. In order to take the next steps in planning diabetes prevention, we need to know what distinguished those at risk of developing diabetes from those who aren’t or are at lower risk within the populations.

Course responsible: Associate Professor Signe Sørensen Torekov, MD Nicolai Wewer Albrechtsen & Professor Jens Juul Holst