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José Camacho

José Camacho

HMX Course

Immunology

José Camacho studied biotechnology engineering as an undergraduate student, and earned a Master of Science in genomic medicine at the University of Manchester. He’s currently collaborating on cancer research at the National Institute of Genomic Medicine in Mexico. José took HMX Immunology to improve his understanding of an increasingly important topic; here, he explains how the course has impacted his planned career path. “I think this is the best online course I’ve taken in my life,” he says.


Why were you interested in studying immunology?

My expectation is to pursue a PhD in cancer genomics, and immunology is highly involved in molecular oncology research. Throughout my academic career, I have studied certain topics in this field that have conferred me with knowledge, however immunology has not been a core topic in my preparation and therefore I had some important gaps in my understanding of this discipline that must be attended for my PhD plans…Anybody who intends to pursue research in molecular oncology must definitely be ready to understand immunology in a deep way.


How challenging was the course for you?

It has been challenging because although my degree is focused on biological sciences, it’s focused mainly on genomics – but cancer goes beyond those areas, it is more involved also with immunology. Although I know what is a blood cell, what is a T cell, a B cell, what is bone marrow, I didn’t know why, for example, active inflammation takes place usually in the presence of a microbe. I didn’t know why T cells can activate B cells and how this happens. I knew that tumor cells were able to evade certain responses, but I didn’t know why, or the role of tumor-associated macrophages. I didn’t really know the key points of immunology and why this really leads to cancer and how we can take advantage of that knowledge to develop novel therapeutics.

It happened that while I was studying this course and focusing on the immunotherapies module, in the same day, Dr. James P. Allison was receiving the Nobel Prize for his work in immunotherapy, and it was like, really I understand that breaking news because I am studying this course and I know how important this work is now. I don’t just know it from a basic concept, I know it with an advanced knowledge of how this works, and now I can understand the studies that have been carried out. And that gave me more ideas to work on my research for my PhD.


What aspects of the course were most helpful for your learning?

The first [aspect is] the very well-explained videos that are presented throughout the course. It’s very hard to understand each step from a molecular pathway of events that take place within a cell or within tissue, but the videos are amazing because they are animated, they are pictures and are guiding you step by step, and the lecturers are explaining at the beginning with very basic concepts, but as we are passing [through] the course they are increasing the level in a way that you can really follow them.

The second part is the disease linkage, because you acquire all this knowledge, which is very valuable, but you just don’t know how to apply it, how this is really happening in real life. The disease linkage part are videos from real patients, and those patients have the conditions you were learning in past lessons, and now you understand why this is happening – the psoriasis examples, the melanoma examples. You really get to know very clearly what you’ve previously understood from the lessons with the applied disease linkage part.

You also have the lesson notepads which are very helpful because they guide you through the concepts that will be important in examinations. The quizzes are also a very important thing, because just after you finish the lesson, you are able to put it in practice and see it in a new perspective. It’s also very good that you have two chances for answering a question because it’s not always easy to assimilate that huge amount of knowledge.

Sometimes you have a question that is not answered in the video or is not that clear for you, and that’s a very interesting part because you go to the discussion board and you can write your question, and there’s staff from the HMX course always there to answer your questions. Also you have all the discussions from other students taking the course, and sometimes you have one question, but it is no longer needed to ask it because other student has also asked it and it is already clear for you.


How has this course impacted your future plans?

It has been life-changing for me. Before taking this course, I was thoroughly convinced I wanted to pursue a PhD in cancer genomics, working in the analysis of DNA sequences for tumors and trying to find novel therapies to regulate this cancer. But now after taking this course, I fell in love with immunology and from the fact that was touted in this course that we have in a natural way the power to tackle cancer with no need of drugs or radiotherapy or chemotherapy, because we have this immune system which is like soldiers. The problem is that they cannot always recognize the threats, the tumors – but if we put glasses on the T cells, the immune soldiers, they would be able to recognize the cancer themselves, with no need of drugs. So in this way we could really enhance all the therapeutics we have currently. Having the possibility of working with this in a PhD makes me feel amazed, and now I have changed the PhD program I was looking for. 


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