Causes of Human Disease: Exploring Cancer and Genetic Disease

Hi everyone, My name is Mike from southern Ontario, Canada. My wife and I run a counselling practice and are very interested in holistic health, spiritual as well as mental, physical and seeing how our 'whole health' affects our bodies. We want the very best health not only for our clients but also for ourselves... to practice what we preach!

I was hoping to understand more about cancer and genetic diseases and how to improve my approach, listening skills and 'bedside manner' with our clients.

This was a fascinating and most informative course... as a complete novice on the subject matter, for me it was a bit like watching the BBC'S Blue Planet only introspectively... we are the 'Genetic Human Planet'. The course gives you a real respect for just how complicated the human body is... and how we are all interconnected to each other by our genes. Thank you to all the contributors and students.

This was my 8th FutureLearn course and I have found them all to be very interesting and beneficial.

This was a very interesting course and I think a basic level of biological understanding would be useful e.g. basic cell biology and genetics. It is at times quite challenging as there is a lot to take in and remember; learners are kept on their toes by plenty of quizzes and assignments.

The content is important to understand as it links with cellular and subcellular processes, evolution and the body's own methods of preventing many health problems. It also covers up-to-date research and techniques for diagnosing and managing cancers of various kinds and also a variety of genetic diseases. As approx 50% of the UK population will experience cancer of some kind, it is useful to undertand its nature but most of all to prevent some of the common cancers if possible.

The part on the effects of lifestyle choices such as smoking, alcohol and sunbathing was good but maybe a little more information about the effects of food to prevent illness would be useful. I appreciate there are other FL courses that deal wth this aspect.

As a result of this course and others in the series, I hope Leeds will attract many students to take their understanding further and gain additional qualifications.

I am an ophthalmologist from Chile. I enjoyed this well-thought genetic course. The course succeed in making understandable something that at first glance may look intimidating, like the molecular basis of genetics. Understanding genetics at the molecular level is essential in order to be able to understand the causal mechanism by which cancer and many other diseases are caused. To carry out a scientific research and using the information gathered to produce a report makes it feel like doing science, and helped to understand at the practical medical level how genetic diseases-including cancer- are produced and how they can be treated, including the fascinating modern gene therapy. Sharing knowledge with the other learners was very helpful too. I will miss this course, it was like go back to college. Thanks.