Course composition
The course has 4 days of teaching. It is divided in two parts: lectures (theoretical education) and demonstrations (practical education).
The theoretical education should as much as possible provide the most central knowledge in development of structures in cranio-facial area including teeth, salivary glands, bone, neural system and the immune system.
Demonstrations should generate skill to register and perhaps execute (to a limited extent) various methods in molecular biology (microchip), RNA and DNA hybridization, small interfering RNA, DNA sequencing, quantitative and real-time PCR), electron microscopy, cell culture, immunohistochemistry and flow-cytometry).
The teaching goals
• Attendees should get knowledge about morphology, development, regulation and function of the embryonic tissue that will create teeth and salivary glands.
• They should be able to describe the generation of pathologic morphology in cranio-facial tissue and organs (dys-morphology).
• They should understand organization, development and underlying reaction mechanisms of the immune system that are linked to its development and are important for odontology.
• They should be able to describe extracellular and intracellular signaling processes that are known, or are currently under extensive research.
• They should be able to explain developmental principles of differentiation, programmed cell death (apoptosis) and proliferation that are linked to and important for odontology.
• They should be able to understand the rationale of scientific method to achieve better-quality research as a fundamental process to advanced education at the university, and that we need better collaboration between future specialists – clinicians (including odontologists in private practice) and basic researchers to achieve such progress.