The aim of the course is to introduce the students to gastrointestinal ecology (nutrition, immunology, microbiology, host-pathogen interactions, gut-brain axis) and its influence on health and disease in animals, in short ”Gut Biology and Health”.
After finalizing the course, the students will be able to:
The course will be a 10-day intensive workshop, covering exercises (practical sampling and handling of gut tissue and digesta, theoretical introduction to a series of laboratory analyses and processing of pre-generated data sets) and a series of interactive seminars/lectures related to aspects of gut biology and health of farm animals. The course aims at introducing the participants to relevant disciplines (i.e. immunology, nutrition and microbiology) as well as state-of-the-art analytical methods (e.g. molecular microbiota analysis, flow cytometry and in vitro cell cultures).
The exercises covers:
Sampling and handling of gut tissue and digesta from pigs and poultry (hands-on). Theoretical introduction to a range of analyses and methodologies like:
Introduction, teaching and scientific seminars will be given by the organizers as well as by a number of national (DK) and international lecturers. The seminars will be covering topics like:
Participants are expected to deliver 128 working hours divided between:
Before arrival at the venue, the participating students are expected to have made themselves familiar with a number of papers, textbook chapters and reviews focusing on gut biology and health; the organizers will provide a literature list. The participants should further prepare a short presentation (max. 10 min) of their own field of work (PhD project) and put it into the frame of the course syllabus.
At the residential course, the students will process data for writing a report on the exercises and the addressed techniques/methodologies. The report should be submitted for evaluation no longer than 2 weeks after the end of the residential course. The exact curriculum will be adjusted from year to year, based on an updated publication list as well as on suggestions from the invited lecturers.
This course targets PhD students and post docs within veterinary, production animal, agricultural and health sciences, working with scientific questions related to gut biology and health.