Course description

The highlights

• The course focuses on developing your practical laboratory skills, so you'll gain first-hand experience of lab work from year one
• You'll also spend time honing your interpersonal skills and general employability, so you can move on to a diverse range of careers in clinical and public health laboratories, industry and research settings
• The course is accredited by the Institute of Biomedical Science. Once successfully completed, this degree will fast-track your journey towards registration as a biomedical scientist with the Health and Care Professions Council
• All of our teaching team are active researchers as well as teachers, so they will be able to share some of the latest findings and innovative thinking from the human health field

This is a progressive, challenging course which focuses on the latest advances in medical research aimed at preventing ill health and prolonging life. The devastating COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for skills in this area, so this degree is highly relevant right now and you can expect to have strong career prospects.

Biomedical Science is a broad discipline of modern medical science. It is all about understanding human health and the diseases that affect the normal processes in the human body, including their diagnosis. On this degree you'll gain the skills and knowledge to understand the operation of human organisms through subjects like clinical chemistry, immunology, microbiology, histology, clinical genetics, molecular biology, pathology and cancer biology

Training you for research

During the programme, you will gain an understanding of biomedical investigations, diagnosis, monitoring and disease treatment. There's a strong focus on laboratory research and you will gain first-hand experience of this from year one. You will have access to a student research laboratory and regularly get the chance to conduct scientific investigations — sometimes in a group and sometimes on your own. You will also need to report your findings to others, including at a student conference attended by employers.

As well as giving you this practical experience, we will of course teach you the essential underpinning knowledge around research governance, ethics, and good scientific practice. In your final year, you will have the opportunity to demonstrate the research skills you have amassed, with an independent study into an area of your choice. This will be a lab-based study or one that uses clinical data.

How you will learn

We use a good variety of teaching methods including:

• Lectures, tutorials, workshops and seminars, which are interactive — these are sometimes led by external speakers from the NHS and other medical organisations
• Laboratory sessions to develop your technical skills and ability to design experiments
• Computer sessions to introduce you to the latest software for data analysis, genetic analysis and protein databases
• Private study with online materials to support

You will also learn through work placements, internships or your year in industry, if you choose to do one.

How you are assessed

Assessments vary depending on the module but we use a range of assessment methods, including:

• Coursework, such as:
  • Laboratory reports on experiments
  • Essays
  • Multiple-choice questions
  • Case studies
  • Oral presentations
  • An independent research study
  • Presentations and practical assessments
  • Unseen written or computer-based exams