Course summary

The overarching scope of the MRes in Tropical Health and Infectious Disease Research is to give students a fully immersive experience of what it means to do scientific research. The MRes will provide training and practical research experience covering a breadth of research areas including basic, clinical and public health research with a focus on low resource settings. In the first part of the course, students will receive advanced and research-informed contemporary learning specific to their research interests giving them a grounding in important research themes and research methods, spanning basic research (e.g. parasitology, microbiology, host-pathogen interactions, vector biology), clinical research (disease diagnosis, management and control) and public health research (e.g. epidemiology, disease control, health determinants, history of global health, health systems, health policy, programme management). Subsequently, students will then be given the freedom to become part of an active research group, with an opportunity to contribute, with the input of their supervisor, to the design and execution of a research project with the goal of generating and/or analysing data relevant to the field of tropical health and infectious disease research. A range of research projects will be offered including lab-, desk-, clinical- or field-based projects. At its conclusion students should have a unique insight to the process of research and an informed view of suitability and preferences for different aspects of academic, industrial or operational research. In addition to this direct research experience, students will be given a series of tasks aimed at developing key transferable skills such as data analysis and presentation, an ability to create and defend scientific argument. Many of these tasks are performed as groupwork to nurture collaborative skills and build an identity of cohort among students. Teaching and research opportunities will be delivered by an internationally diverse team of research-active experts in their disciplines, covering basic biological research, through to clinical sciences and public health. Given LSTM’s unique focus on problems of public health in predominantly tropical and sub-tropical regions of limited resource, the majority of the programme’s research focus will be on public health problems in these settings, with research projects being offered either in Liverpool or overseas (limited number), with opportunities to engage with professional and industrial bodies in global health as part of this process.