Disease and Prions

Communicable Disease

In this course, Dr Matthew Ivory (Cardiff University) talks about communicable disease. There are various different types of organisms that can cause disease that are transferred between individuals. We begin by looking at: (i) the definition of communicable disease and its impact on human society; before (ii) looking specifically at viral diseases; then (iii) bacterial disease and some examples of bacteria that cause infection; before looking at (iv) diseases caused by protists (or protozoans); and finally (v) investigating disease caused by fungal and multicellular parasites.

Disease and Prions

In the first mini-lecture, we introduce communicable diseases by first giving a definition for disease itself. How does disease differ from injury, especially when disease can be symptomless, cause major life-changing symptoms or even cause death? Disease, such as ischaemic heart disease, COPD, and lung cancers make up some of the leading causes of death in humans, according to WHO. Communicable diseases can be transferred between subjects through a number of different means, and in this lecture we investigate some of those ways. We introduce some of the different types of organisms that can cause disease, such as bacteria, protists, viruses and parasites, before also discussing the impact of prions, particularly in the brain.