Personalised Medicine with Optional Placement Year

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Start date: September 2024

Deadlines for on-time applications

2024 entry application deadlines

For courses starting in 2024 (and for deferred applications), your application should be with us at UCAS by one of these dates – depending on what courses you apply for. If your completed application – including all your personal details and your academic reference – is submitted by the deadline, it is guaranteed to be considered.

16 October 2023 for 2024 entry at 18:00 (UK time) – any course at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, or for most courses in medicine, veterinary medicine/science, and dentistry. You can add choices with a different deadline later, but don’t forget you can only have five choices in total.

31 January 2024 for 2024 entry at 18:00 (UK time) – for the majority of courses.

Some course providers require additional admissions tests to be taken alongside the UCAS application, and these may have a deadline. Find out more about these tests at https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/applying-university/admissions-tests

Check course information in the search tool to see which deadline applies to you at the application weblink below.

Apply as soon as possible: Student funding arrangements mean that as offers are made and places fill up, some courses may only have vacancies for students from certain locations. It’s therefore really important that you apply for your chosen courses by the appropriate deadlines mentioned above, as not all courses will have places for all students.

All applications received after 30 June are entered into Clearing - find out more about Clearing at https://www.ucas.com/undergraduate/clearing-and-results-day/what-clearing

Overview
The future of biomedical innovation

Summary
Study Personalised Medicine at Ulster University in the United Kingdom.

Personalised Medicine (also known as stratified medicine or precision medicine) is at the cutting edge of a new era in healthcare.

Personalised Medicine draws on molecular biology, data science and clinical practice to streamline healthcare, identifying ‘the right treatment, for the right person, at the right time.

By learning how genes, lifestyle and the environment influence disease and affect the success of treatments, we can understand which treatments are best for each patient. Personalised Medicine involves discovering biomarkers (such as genes or proteins) that can determine who is at risk of developing a disease, how severe the disease will be and who will respond better to one therapy versus another, revolutionising how quickly patients receive effective treatment and transforming the efficiency of healthcare.

Our course is taught by a team of experienced and active research scientists, with contributions from industry experts and hospital doctors. Our course received 100% overall satisfaction in the 2019 National Student Survey and 90% of graduates were in full time work or study within 6 months of graduation.

About
The Personalised Medicine BSc Hons is a three-year, full-time course (or four years including placement in third year) that equips you with a 360-degree skill set across biomedical science, data science and clinical practice to prepare you for a career in the life sciences.

In year one students study six modules that establish a strong foundation in topics such as physiology, cell biology, immunology, data analytics and the ‘omics’ (genomics, proteomics and metabolomics).

Year two consists of six modules that develop your expertise further, going deeper into data analytics and informatics and exploring pharmacogenomics, DNA sequencing and the governance of clinical trials.

An optional placement year is available in year three that provides a wide range of opportunities for students to experience professional practice and develop project management skills in an industrial, hospital or university environment.

Final year provides essential experience of neurology, clinical decision making and healthcare economics, and provides the opportunity to complete a research project with one of our active research groups (in one of data analysis, clinical science or basic science).

This course will give you an in-depth understanding of disease systems, molecular pharmacology, genetic/proteomic biomarker discovery and validation, bioinformatics and data analytics applied to large patient and ‘omic’ datasets ('big data').

You will exit this course with a highly sought-after combination of expertise in biomedicine, bioinformatics and data analytics and will be well-equipped to become part of a rapidly expanding workforce on the cutting edge of scientific and medical progress. You will be well positioned for a career in research, the health service, and the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industries.

The programme incorporates professional skills development in collaboration with a dedicated Industrial Liaison Committee, comprising over 30 industrial partners located throughout the UK, Ireland and the US, including companies like Randox Laboratories, Almac Diagnostics, GlaxoSmithKline and Aridhia.

Your future career will undoubtably improve patients’ quality of life through the development of better healthcare and smarter technologies to treat and manage diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer and immune disease.

BSc Personalised Medicine is delivered by a research active lecturing team, all with PhDs in relevant subject areas and with professional body recognition.

More widely, the University employs over 1,000 suitably qualified and experienced academic staff - 59% have PhDs in their subject field and many have professional body recognition.

Courses are taught by staff who are Professors (25%), Readers, Senior Lecturers (18%) or Lecturers (57%).

We require most academic staff to be qualified to teach in higher education: 82% hold either Postgraduate Certificates in Higher Education Practice or higher. Most academic staff (81%) are accredited fellows of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) - the university sector professional body for teaching and learning. Many academic and technical staff hold other professional body designations related to their subject or scholarly practice.

The profiles of many academic staff can be found on the University’s departmental websites and give a detailed insight into the range of staffing and expertise. The precise staffing for a course will depend on the department(s) involved and the availability and management of staff. This is subject to change annually and is confirmed in the timetable issued at the start of the course.

Occasionally, teaching may be supplemented by suitably qualified part-time staff (usually qualified researchers) and specialist guest lecturers. In these cases, all staff are inducted, mostly through our staff development programme ‘First Steps to Teaching’. In some cases, usually for provision in one of our out-centres, Recognised University Teachers are involved, supported by the University in suitable professional development for teaching.

Here is a guide to the subjects studied on this course.

Courses are continually reviewed to take advantage of new teaching approaches and developments in research, industry and the professions. Please be aware that modules may change for your year of entry. The exact modules available and their order may vary depending on course updates, staff availability, timetabling and student demand. Please contact the course team for the most up to date module list.

Year 1
Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Anatomy and Systems Based Physiology
Mathematical Methods
Genetic Inheritance and Genetic Variation in Human Disease
Biocomputing and Programming
Year: 1

Year 2
Pharmacology and Pharmcogenomics
Statistical and Computing Methods
Cellular and Molecular Pathophysiology
Biomedical Informatics
DNA Sequencing and Omic Technologies
Ethics, Regulatory process and Clinical Trial Design

Year 3
Placement: Diploma in Professional Practice (International) (DPP/DPPI) - Optional

Year 4
Multi-omics and Systems Biology
Clinical or Fundamental research design
Clinical decision making and health economics
Clinical Research Project
Applied Bioinformatics
Personalised Medicine: Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders

Assessment methods vary and are defined explicitly in each module. Assessment can be a combination of examination and coursework but may also be only one of these methods. Assessment is designed to assess your achievement of the module’s stated learning outcomes. You can expect to receive timely feedback on all coursework assessments. This feedback may be issued individually and/or issued to the group and you will be encouraged to act on this feedback for your own development.

Coursework can take many forms, for example: essay, report, seminar paper, test, presentation, dissertation, design, artefacts, portfolio, journal, group work. The precise form and combination of assessment will depend on the course you apply for and the module. Details will be made available in advance through induction, the course handbook, the module specification, the assessment timetable and the assessment brief. The details are subject to change from year to year for quality or enhancement reasons. You will be consulted about any significant changes.

Normally, a module will have 4 learning outcomes, and no more than 2 items of assessment. An item of assessment can comprise more than one task. The notional workload and the equivalence across types of assessment is standardised. The module pass mark for undergraduate courses is 40%. The module pass mark for postgraduate courses is 50%.

Associate awards
Diploma in Professional Practice DPP
Diploma in Professional Practice International DPPI

Work placement / study abroad
An optional placement year is available in the third year of study.

The placement provides a wide range of opportunities for students to experience professional practice and undertake scientifically and commercially relevant project work in an industrial, hospital or university environment.

Students benefit by greatly improving their practical abilities, time management, organisational and interpersonal skills, project management skills and by starting to develop their network of professional contacts. These factors all help to improve employability.

Ulster University,
Northland Rd,
Londonderry
BT48 7JL
T: 02870 123 456