Course summary

This course is accredited by the Royal Society of Biology. You will spend a lot of time in our £5 million Super Lab gaining hands-on lab experience. Practical learning and laboratory experience starts early in semester one of the first year. Your lab skills will improve throughout the first and second years. In your final year, you will become a member of a research laboratory and carry out your own year-long research project. Some students have even had their work published in scientific journals. What you will study Microbiologists play an important role in helping to prevent disease, develop new treatments, clean up the environment, and keep food safe. You will study the micro-organisms which affect the environment, human, animal and plant health, and find out how to use microbes to make medicines and vaccines. You will explore the use of good and bad bacteria, viruses and eukaryotic microbes, and learn different methods needed for the safe handling of level 2 pathogens. These are biological agents that can cause disease, including Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria and Salmonella. Our range of optional modules in the second and third years allows you to tailor your study to your interests. When you graduate you will be qualified to work with microbial pathogens. This means you can work in a laboratory in research or a pharmaceutical company. You will learn:

• sterile technique

• how to identify bacteria (including pathogenic bacteria)

• how to grow and characterise bacteria in the laboratory

• the mechanisms of anti-microbial resistance

• how to detect and count virusesgene analysis and cloning

• Explore different areas of microbiology, including disease, health, food and the environment

• Accredited by the Royal Society of Biology, who cited good practice in having a research-led curriculum and the progressive development of laboratory skills

• Optional industry year supported by our placement team, for real-life experience

• One-to-one support on your research project from academic supervisors and lab mentors

• You can choose to add an additional year in Computer Science when you start your degree. Cover topics on programming, software development, modelling and more.