This Biology Courses website is a nationally funded project that is part of the UK Open Educational Resource Programme (Phase 3, 2011 – 2012) run by the JISC / HEA. Our project is called HALS OER – Health and Life Science Open Educational Resources and everything you see here is shared around the globe, openly and freely available to use.

Foundations of Biomedical Science: Quantitative Literacy Theory and Problems is designed to help students develop the fundamental mathematical and quantitative literacy required to navigate and interpret evidence-based Biomedical data. This will provide students with the skills and confidence to habitually question any quantitative data they come across and to use these skills to make informed judgements regarding their veracity.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microbiota that live as symbionts within and on other organisms are a huge focus area for research. With over 90,000 studies in the past decade alone, the findings have implications stretching beyond individual species, and influencing biological and philosophical concepts with consequences for biological and medical issues. At this intersection of biology, biomedical sciences and philosophy, an interdisciplinary summer school was held in July 2019. The “Microbiota, Symbiosis and Individuality” meeting focused on four facets of microbiological research: Holobionts, Individuality, Causation, and human health. The meeting examined the construction of biological identity as a dynamic dialogue with the organism’s microbiota. Because life relies on symbiosis, a holobiont – the host plus its microbiota – might be considered a biological individual. Focusing on the causal relationships between a host and its microbes will help to inform human health and medicine..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This learning tool will guide students through the process of understanding real-world applications of drug delivery and how drug delivery is applied to treating infectious diseases. Students using this module should find success in self-directed learning, though they may use additional resources in the community, the guidance of teachers, the advice of scientists or biomedical professionals at DDF, or the knowledge presented in scientific literature to help them achieve their goal; though this module should provide most of the tools they will need for guidance.