Veterinary Virology is a 3-credit graduate-level course focused on the common molecular and evolutionary mechanisms used by viruses that infect animals. This course provides a number of distinctive perspectives in veterinary virology including comprehensive overviews on:
- Contemporary molecular, proteomic, structural, microscopy, and computational research techniques used to study viruses. Topics covered include reverse genetics, single particle tracking, protein chromatography, cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, deep sequencing, and systems virology approaches, among others.
- The systematic step-by-step processes of viral infection within animal hosts, starting at cellular entry and ending in cellular exit, using important veterinary pathogens as examples. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, viral receptor fusion with host membranes; mRNA transcription, splicing, and genome replication; unique protein production strategies used by viruses and post-translational modifications of viral proteins; intracellular trafficking; models for genome packaging; and assembly and maturation of virus particles.
- The evolutionary dynamics of veterinary viruses. Topics covered include mechanisms of virus evolution and emergence; population dynamics; spillover, zoonotic transmission, and reverse zoonoses; virus transmissibility within and between hosts; and virus-host interactions on a molecular/atomic level, among others.