General Embryology
This course deals with ontogeny and phylogeny, with fundamental basis of epigenetic and evolutionist theories. Description, classification and segmentation of eggs of chordates and vertebrates will be provided. As a further step, during the course morula, blastula and gastrulation will be described in chordates, fishes, amphibians and sauropsida. Particular attention will be pointed out on the phases of morula and blastocyst in mammals and humans with detailed description of gastrulation and neurulation. Furthermore, the course will address the cellular differentiation from a cellular and molecular point of view, including molecular factors involved morphogenetic processes. Tissues and their development from different germ layers will be described. The course will end with a description of epithelial, muscular and connective tissues with details on neurons, neuronal fibres and synapsis.
Human Anatomy
The course is intended to provide the fundamental basis of anatomical terminology, which is needed to study biomedical sciences. As a further step, the course will provide the fundaments of gross anatomy of specific systems (integumentary, cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, genito-urinary, endocrine, central and peripheral nervous systems); elements of the locomotor (including skeletal and muscular) system will be provided. Moving from this background a special emphasis will be put on the correlation between structure and function dealing with the functional anatomy of specific organs which will be considered as proof-of-principle to understand how in biological integrative systems anatomy and physiology interconnect to each other in achieving specific tasks. This will connect to the specific aim of Morphology applied to the field of Biotechnologies.