Unit Synopsis
Molecular and cellular pathology involves the study of disease processes at the molecular level and allows diagnosis of disease through the detection of genetic mutations, dysregulated gene expression and non functional or cytotoxic proteins. In this unit, you will learn about the role of cellular genetic material and associated genetic rearrangements and mutations. You will explore the application of molecular techniques, such as polymerase chain reaction and next generation sequencing, and their revolutionary impact on diagnostic testing. The residential school may be scheduled outside of the term of offering of the unit.
Details
| Level | Postgraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 9 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Prerequisites: Enrolment in Master of Laboratory Medicine. Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 2 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Postgraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
To see assessment details from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 90.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 18.02% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE
Students appreciate the short, bite-sized lecture recordings.
Consider continuing this method of recording and delivering lectures.
Bite-sized lecture recordings continued from weeks 1 - week 11 lectures.
Source: SUTE
Students like the case studies associated with each topics
Consider continuing and expanding the use of case studies in the tutorial sessions.
Case studies were included for each topic and week
Source: SUTE
Some students like the Kahoot Quizzes to be included in the tutorial sessions.
Consider re-introducing the Kahoot quizzes, and to be run towards the end of the tutorial sessions
Due to time constraints, Kahoot quizzes were not used. Instead, for each tutorial topic, more than 20 short-answer questions were discussed in detail, with model answers subsequently made available on the subject Moodle site.
Source: Self-reflection
Residential school experiments
Consider incorporating additional experiments during the residential school, as there is capacity to include more practical work.
In Progress
Source: SUTE and self-reflection
Tutorial format has been engaging
Retain the current tutorial format, with questions provided one week in advance and reviewed during face-to-face tutorial sessions.
In Progress
Source: Self-reflection
The topic Molecular Basis of Prostate, Colorectal, and Breast Cancer requires an additional lecture/tutorial session, as the existing allocation is insufficient to adequately cover the breadth and depth of the content.
Consider adding an additional lecture/tutorial session to adequately cover this topic. This could be achieved by replacing the existing blood lecture topic with this content (as the blood related topic is also covered in LMED28002)
In Progress
To see Learning Outcomes from an earlier availability, please search via a previous term.