This course investigates the role that infectious diseases play in our changing world and explores how we can apply an ethical and socially just course of action around surveillance, prevention, experimentation, and treatment. Course discussions and readings review the science of the complex interaction between host and pathogen, the biological processes underlying infection, treatment, and prevention, and the socio-economic/political factors that influence infectious disease progression, such as urbanization, climate change, and cultural practices. Topics include: the human immune system, the rise of drug resistant microbes, and biotechnological advances in diagnostic and vaccine development. The impact of neglected diseases, environmental stewardship, human experimentation, and drug development and access will be used to bring a social justice dimension to the scientific learning. Each student is assigned a disease for the semester and presents both the biological and the sociological perspectives of the disease during the last third of the class. This course satisfies the approved 2000-level foundation requirement or the elective requirement for the IS major. For the IS minor, this course satisfies the foundation requirement.