Precision Medicine (Taught)

This MSc is designed to directly meet research demands in the NHS, industry and academia where there is a need for scientists with both biological knowledge and the computational, statistical, analytical and practical skills to drive precision medicine. Students will learn the underlying principles of precision medicine and how they are applied to deliver targeted therapies. They will also discover the technologies currently being developed to detect and diagnose various diseases.

WHY THIS PROGRAMME

• Join the next generation of scientists responsible for creating new diagnostic tests and tailored therapies to aid earlier diagnosis and optimal treatment for patients.

• Attend seminars from world class leaders in the field, including academics, industry experts and NHS experts e.g. Chief Scientist (Health) for the Scottish Government, Prof Dame Anna Dominiczak; Company Director of Reprocell, Dr David Bunton; NHS Clinical Scientists.

• Gain skills and experience to allow you to become an outstanding researcher in this field, working towards pre-emptive, predictive, personalised and participatory medicine.

• Expand your understanding of current techniques in detection and treatment to ultimately support the development of novel, more precisely targeted treatments in these areas.

• Utilise cutting-edge facilities, research and teaching experience at the University of Glasgow.

• Advantage of being at the site of several important centres for precision medicine, including Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre, Imaging Centre of Excellence, the Living Laboratory and Sir Henry Wellcome Functional Genomics Facility.

• Develop your employability skills in the area of precision diagnostics/therapeutics and omics.

• Precision Medicine is a multi-billion pound industry globally and Scotland is a pioneering nation in this field because of our 'triple helix' links to the NHS, academia and industry partnerships, giving you great networking and career options.

• The programme has multiple industrial partners that host students for their MSc research project. Examples of companies involved in the programme include: Canon Medical Research Europe, Reprocell, Bioascent. Companies can offer both “wet” or “dry” projects, for which training is provided earlier in the programme.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE

Students will study core aspects of precision medicine in the first half of the programme, while the second half will also provide students with the opportunity to study an optional course. The programme will then culminate in the MSc Dissertation project, where students will be given the opportunity to conduct research with world-leading researchers. Students will receive multiple opportunities to hear from a variety of renowned expert researchers in both semesters 1 and 2 through our World Changers distinguished seminars course.

The core aspects cover themes unique to precision medicine: precision genomics, diagnostics and therapeutics; ‘omics’ for precision medicine; and research skills and methods for precision medicine.

Semester 1
Core Courses
Precision Diagonostics and Therapeutics
Precision Genomics
Research Skills for Precision Medicine
World Changers: Precision Medicine Seminar Series

Semester 2
Core courses:
Fundamentals of Experimental Design and Data Analysis
Omic Data Analysis and Visualisation, using R, for Biologists
Single Cell and Spatial Omics for Biologists
World Changers: Precision Medicine Seminar Series

Optional courses (select any one from below):
Biomedical Image Analysis with applications using AI/ML
Complex Disease Genomics: linking genome to phenome 
Further Omics, Statistics and Clinical data in R
In Vivo Research Skills
The Cancer Microenvironment and Biomarkers

Semester 3
Precision Medicine Research Project