Once your Major Subject has been confirmed, the Faculty Office will ask you to state your preferred Minor Subject by 1st August. Some Minor Subjects have limited places, and if these are over-subscribed the departments concerned will select their own students.
On this page you will find information to help you choose your Minor Subject:
- The list of departments offering Minor Subjects in 2020-21 with outward links
- A short description of each Minor Subject
- Contact details for Minor Subjects
Departments offering BBS Minor Subjects
Click on the tiles below to visit corresponding departmental webpages
Minor Subjects short descriptionThe links below are, when possible, specific to a given Minor subject. |
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| Paper | Short Description (see links for more detailed information) |
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| 104 - Human Evolution |
This course provides an in depth exploration of the evolutionary history of humans and hominins. The paper looks at human evolution from ca. 10 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. Contact hours: 27h Maximum 20 candidates
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| 105 - Human Ecology and Behaviour |
This paper examines human and other primate behaviour in a broad comparative perspective. Non-human primate social communication across all sense modalities will be reviewed in the context of the social organization of the various primate species. The paper will also consider what primate and human communication have in common, and will discuss the evolution of human language. Contact hours: 32h Maximum 20 candidates
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| 106 - Neural Degeneration and Regeneration |
Diseases and injuries of the human brain and spinal cord are tragically resistant to treatment. This lecture module investigates the cellular and molecular causes of these conditions, the reasons why regeneration does not take place, and the research now under way to permit regeneration therapies in the future. Contact hours: 24h Maximum 15 candidates |
| 107 - Philosophy & Ethics of Medicine |
Do we have a human right to health? What is it to be healthy anyway, and can good health be measured? How can we know that smoking causes lung cancer, rather than that they are merely correlated? Is it ethical to experiment on humans to gain that knowledge? Is the foetus a person, and does this affect the morality of abortion? How should we decide between funding basic science and applied studies? Medical practice raises significant philosophical, ethical and political questions. This course studies these questions and shows how different answers may influence practice. Contact hours: 24h lectures + 4-6h supervisions Maximum 50 candidates |
| 108 - Health, Medicine and Society | This paper provides students with a critical survey of principal themes and debates in contemporary medical sociology. It explores the major social causes of health and illness in modern societies, with special reference to such factors as social class, gender, ethnicity, and age; provides students with a sociological grasp of the issues and problems associated with chronic illness; investigates a variety of key topics in the sociology of mental health; and, finally, develops a sociological analysis of the major organisational, professional and technological components of medical practice in contemporary society. Contact hours: 20h |
| 109 - The Family |
Psychological and sociological perspectives on family relationships, kinship and child development are examined in relation to specific topics such as motherhood, fatherhood, adolescence, marriage and divorce, single-parent and step-families, lesbian and gay families, and families created by assisted reproduction. Contact hours: 32h Maximum 10 candidates |
| 111 - Central Mechanisms of Reward, Punishment and Emotion |
How does the brain process reward and punishment and how does this help us understand emotions and their dysregulation? Themes discussed in this module include: the varied functions of reward, the pathological mechanisms underlying a loss of pleasure, the reward circuitry underlying social behaviour and social cognition, the mechanisms by which punishing stimuli impact on our motivations and emotions, the dysregulation of these circuits in psychiatric disorders, and the interplay between cognition and emotion. Contact hours: 24h Maximum 15 candidates |
| 113 - Early Medicine |
This paper covers medical knowledge and practices in the medieval and early modern periods. Themes include tradition, innovation and the transmission of knowledge; the value of reason and experience; patient-practitioner relationships; gender and medicine; pluralism and the marketplace; understandings of the body and disease; medicine, magic and religion. Contact hours: 24h lectures + 4-6h supervisions Maximum 12 candidates |
| 114 - Modern Medicine & Biomedical Sciences |
Born in hospitals, vaccinated, X-rayed, taking antibiotics, receiving transplants – medicine sets the parameters of our lives. Since a great deal of biology, chemistry and physics has been and continues to be done as part of medicine, it is also central to HPS. This paper is about how, and with what consequences, a new, scientific medicine was made for the modern world. The Michaelmas Term course surveys the creation since 1750 of new medical institutions, professionals and practices. The Lent Term course explores the 20th-century transformation of medicine into a major object of economic, political and ethical concern. Contact hours: 24h lectures + 4-6h supervisions Maximum 12 candidates |
| 120 - Human Genetics, Genomics & Systems Biology | Human genetics has always had to exploit technology to obtain answers to the problems it poses. The module explores how we can use information from the Human Genome Project, together with methods for analysing gene expression and function at the whole-genome scale (Systems Biology) to improve our understanding of human biology. Contact hours: 26h |
| 121 - Evolutionary Genetics & Adaptation | This module will consider the process of evolution, by looking at studies on genetic variation in populations, together with theoretical examinations of the way that genes behave in populations. Contact hours: 26h |
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Students work in teams to prepare a commercial feasibility report and present the findings to the inventors. Supervision and support is provided which covers topics such as opportunity evaluation, developing business concepts and making presentations. Contact hours: 27h If you wish to take the BBS EnterpriseTECH Minor subject, you must register online by 1st August on the EnterpriseTECH website (applications for Lent 2021 will open late Spring 2020) General information about EnterpriseTECH Maximum 20 candidates |
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124 - Advanced Topics in Social and Applied Psychology
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This course will include the following lecture topics: Advanced Topics in Personality and Individual Differences, Applying Behavioural Insights, Influence and Persuasion in the Digital Age, Translational Issues in Psychology. Maximum 10 candidates |
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126 - Exploring Music Psychology (Part II paper 17) |
What are the factors that affect our perception and production of music and how can these be studied? What is music’s role in health and therapy? These questions are at the heart of the wide-ranging field of music psychology and form the basis of this course. Contact hours: 16h. Maximum 3 candidates - candidates must demonstrate some musical knowledge to be permitted to study this option |
| 127 - Conservation Science | This interdepartmental course, taught by the Departments of Zoology and Plant Sciences, aims to provide an understanding of why wild nature is currently in decline, why this matters, and how biology coupled with other disciplines can be harnessed to identify potential solutions. Contact hours: 27h |
| 128 - Bioinformatics |
Unfortunately, this module will no longer be running for 2020-2021 |
| 129 - Applied Clinical Research |
The aim of this module is to provide students the opportunity to gain the knowledge, skills and practical experience to understand the importance and challenges of applied clinical research. The module offers a platform for developing further expertise in academic medicine during clinical studies and beyond. Students will also have the opportunity to develop themes that they have begun to explore in this BBS module through Student Selected Components in Year 4 of the Cambridge clinical course. Contact hours: 35h Maximum 9 candidates - Selection criteria |
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This course introduces the history and evolution of non-mammalian vertebrates, emphasising questions that are the subject of current debate and controversy. We integrate studies of fossil and living vertebrates to examine major events in evolution. An important component of the course is the demonstration practicals, which give "hands-on" experience of actual fossil material, including some type and figured specimens. Contact hours 48h |
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These lectures place a strong emphasis on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying behaviour. Within this module we explore how nervous systems are organised, how animals gather and process information about the environment, and how they generate the motor activity underlying their behaviour. Contact hours: 24h |
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This BBS minor subject comprises Module B from the Part II Biochemistry course. This course examines all steps in eukaryotic gene expression, from chromatin accessibility through to translation and mRNA turnover. Particular emphasis is paid to: regulation of gene expression, the co-transcriptional nature of RNA processing, functional coupling between different steps in gene expression, the impact of global and “systems” level approaches to understanding gene expression. |
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This BBS minor subject comprises Module D from the Part II Biochemistry course. The themes of this course draw on most modern biological techniques and impinge on core cell and molecular biology topics of cellular signalling, DNA replication, DNA repair, cell cycle and apoptosis amongst others. There is a particular emphasis on cancer biology and therapeutic intervention with lectures on oncogenes and tumour suppressors, experimental systems, tumour metabolism and imaging, virology and therapeutic strategies. |
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Science and its related disciplines have a wide-ranging and profound impact upon the lives of individuals, society and nature. Science Communication is a rapidly expanding profession, and the skills it involves are increasingly valued among researchers and employers. Scientists therefore have a responsibility to communicate their work in an ethical, effective and engaging manner within the wider community. This course provides an insight into science communication for those students who are seeking an option that will support their professional ambitions, whether those lie in science or in the science-related areas of business, policy, environment and healthcare, among many others. Contact hours: 24h |
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137 - Surgical and Radiological Anatomy
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This course introduces students to areas of anatomy that are especially relevant to surgical and radiological procedures. The need for a good working knowledge of anatomy in surgical and radiological practice is of course paramount in clinical safety. Applicants for Core Surgical Training and Specialty Radiology Training may improve their scores in the “Experience in and commitment to specialty” component by having chosen to take a relevant module such as this course. Students also choose one practical activity from the following options: attendance at operating theatre sessions; diagnostic and/or interventional radiology session; or preparation of an anatomical prosection. Assessment includes a 1-hour Short Answer Questions paper, a short written report and oral presentation on the practical session. Lecturers are current consultant radiologists and surgeons. Contact hours: 24h |
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138 - Developmental Neurobiology
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This module addresses how the nervous system is assembled during embryonic development. Although we now understand a considerable amount about the processes involved, many fascinating questions remain. This module will explore: the formation of the vertebrate neural tube; how this is patterned to generate distinct neuronal and glial cell fates in different regions; the formation of the peripheral nervous system from the migratory neural crest and cranial neurogenic placodes; the process of axon guidance; how axons make and refine the synapses that will generate functional neural circuits; how circuit designs lead to function; and the nervous system evolution (‘evo-devo’). Contact hours: 24h |
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139 - Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
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While many approaches can be applied to analyses of nervous systems, it is obviously important for any mechanistic understanding to determine the cellular and synaptic properties underlying sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. This module provides a basis from which you can investigate various aspects of cellular and synaptic function. The lectures will cover voltage-dependent ion channels, oligodendrocytes and glial cells, ionotropic transmitter receptors including NMDA and AMPA-type glutamate receptors, Cys-loop receptors (e.g. nicotinic acetylcholine), G protein-coupled receptors, the influence of pH on neuronal function, the role of calcium in synaptic transmission and plasticity, and mechanisms of transmitter release and activity-dependent and neuromodulator-evoked plasticity. Contact hours: 24h |
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The process of transduction within individual sensory receptors has consequences for, and imposes limits on, the perception of sensory events. Considerable advances have been made in recent years in elucidating the means by which primary sensory stimuli are transduced and processed. The module will explore: the molecular mechanisms which enable vertebrate photoreceptors to respond with incredible sensitivity to individual photons of light; invertebrate phototransduction; the transduction and coding in olfactory receptors and the chemosensory signals in the olfactory bulb; mechanotransduction; and the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for the transduction of pain. Contact hours: 24h + optional neuroscience workshops |
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Cells detect and respond to changes in their external environment through a cornucopia of signalling pathways. Many of the pathways involve complex biochemical reactions, but some are more amenable to study by the physiologist – in particular membrane potential, calcium and pH. Thus, in this module we look at cellular signalling from a Physiological viewpoint rather than 'stamp collecting' all of the signalling pathways. The three main signalling mechanisms we have selected here are used by both excitable and in-excitable cells to transmit information from the cell surface to effector systems: the basic ionic regulation mechanisms that allow signalling to exist; the ion channels that allow calcium into cells; intracellular calcium signalling. The calcium signals also result in pH microdomains, which are also potential signals. We consider how ligands can result in potential changes and how these potential changes can be modified by signalling pathways. We end the series of lectures by bringing together membrane potential changes and calcium signalling with lectures on skeletal muscle and meta plasticity. Contact hours: 24h |
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142 - Development and Stem Cells
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The transformation of a fertilised egg into an embryo encompasses a series of fundamental cellular events that culminate in the divergence of the embryonic and extra-embryonic cell lineages. During this process the initial totipotent egg generates cells that, progressively become restricted to different fates. The first differentiation event is a separation between extra-embryonic trophectoderm and the pluripotent embryonic inner cell mass, and the second, within the inner cell mass, between the embryonic epiblast and the extra-embryonic primitive endoderm. In this module we will explore how these cell fate decisions are taken and what transcriptional networks and epigenetic modifications reinforce them. We will also consider subsequent functions of the extra-embryonic lineages, and how interactions between the trophectoderm and the maternal tissues lead to implantation and establishment of a successful pregnancy. Contact hours: 24h |
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143 - Systems and Clinical Physiology
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Systems physiology is central to the practice of scientific medicine. The idea behind this module is to give you a more detailed view of some aspects of systems physiology and to include some clinically oriented material that is of particular importance to the practising doctor. Cardiovascular topics include cardiac arrhythmias, the genetics and energetics of heart failure and a look at the pulmonary circulation from a clinical viewpoint. Renal physiology includes autoregulation, osmoregulation and acute and chronic renal failure. Several areas of endocrine physiology are explored in the form of pancreatic islet and gut hormones, brain control of food intake, the ever increasing problem of diabetes mellitus and the physiology and pathophysiology of bone. Contact hours: 24h |
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144 - Plant Signalling Networks in Growth and Development
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In this lecture course you will learn about the components of signalling systems involved in physiological and developmental responses to the environment and how these components are organised into elegant networks. The lecture material will introduce you to the elements that make up signalling networks and also place these elements in context. Contact hours: 24h |
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145 - Microbes: Evolution, Genomes and Lifestyle
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This course explores microorganisms with relevance to understanding plant biology including the major groups of microbes, the environmental and evolutionary transition of microbes to endosymbiotic organelles, as well as beneficial and detrimental interactions between plants and microbes. Contact hours: 24h |
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146 - Evolution and Ecosystems Dynamics
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The phylogenetic progression of land plants allows us to relate palaeohistorical origins, from algae to bryophytes and lycopods, to their evolutionary progression through ferns and conifers to angiosperms. The module will examine the molecular basis to morphological advances, as compared to the physiological progression. The diversity engendered within, and beneath forest canopies, and the historical ecology of today’s landscape, complete our review of vegetation history and dynamics. Contact hours: 24h |
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147 - Plant Genomes and Synthetic Biology
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Dobzhansky said in 1973 that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. In 2015 he might have gone on to point out that “genomes reflect evolution and so we can make sense of biology by studying genomes”. He would be able to make this point because, from next generation sequencing and other powerful new methods, we now appreciate that nuclear genomes are much more than a linear array of coding sequence genes. They are a complex array of structural and regulatory components interspersed with genes for both coding and non coding RNAs. Contact hours: 24h |
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148 - Responses to Global Change
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Temperatures are rising, land cover is changing, and people are moving pests and pathogens around the world at unprecedented rates – in short, we have never seen such changes in the history of humans. |
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149 - Exploiting Plant Metabolism
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Understanding plant metabolism informs our production of food, fuel and many high‐value products. Modifying these metabolic pathways therefore provides the opportunity to contribute to more productive and sustainable societies. However, the complexity of metabolic systems leads to major intellectual challenges, both in terms of understanding but also in manipulating each system. Contact hours: 24h |
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150 - Research Methods in Medical Law and Ethics New to 2020-2021 |
Technological advances in fields such as intensive care and reproductive medicine herald possibilities that are accompanied by profound ethical questions. The regulation of practices including euthanasia, end of life care, psychiatric treatment, assisted reproduction and termination of pregnancy, by legislatures and by the courts, is a constantly evolving process. All doctors need to be able to understand their legal and ethical obligations but the medical profession also needs members who have developed particular expertise in law and ethics, to participate in the development of policy and to educate their peers and the public. This courset is designed to offer an opportunity for students who are interested in developing an academic interest in medical ethics and/or law, enabling them to acquire knowledge and skills to undertake research, post-graduate study, or pursue a career in a field of medicine that requires particular understanding of law and ethics. Contact hours: 24h Maximum 10 candidates |
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151 - Comparative Human Biology New to 2020-2021 |
This paper examines the biology of our species in the context of non-human primate and wider mammalian variation. The paper covers diverse aspects of human biology, including anatomy, physiology, behaviour, cognition, growth patterns and life-history characteristics. It considers the ways in which our biology differs from that of our closest living relatives, the non-human primates, as well as mammals and vertebrates more broadly. It will also explore biological variation within and between human populations, drawing on evidence from both past and contemporary human populations by combining perspectives from the fields of Palaeoanthropology, Evolutionary Genetics, Osteoarchaeology and Human Biology. The paper will consider not only how we vary, but why, discussing both the underlying evolutionary mechanisms (such as natural selection, neutral variation and epigenetics), as well as the developmental basis of the variation we observe. Contact hours: 27h Maximum 20 candidates |