The BoP course combines lectures and extensive hands on training in the laboratory. Be prepared for a uniquely intense experience of breathing science day and night for 7 weeks. Each day of the BoP course starts with a lecture. Experts from around the world provide an introduction and then share their latest research (see below for an example of recent speaker lineup). The lecture format is informal and collegial, and students frequently ask numerous questions or bring up points for discussion throughout. Students have lunch with the speaker and most speakers are available for discussions with students in the lab for the remainder of the day.

Experimental work fills the rest of the day and often continues late into the night. The laboratory segment of the course is organized into one or two week modules. For each module the 16 students are split into two research teams working with the head of a laboratory and a senior student or postdoctoral fellow who serves as a teaching assistant. Module faculty and their assistants bring numerous experiments to the course that reflect the expertise and interest of their laboratory. The experiments have a strong element of discovery and push the envelope into new questions and approaches. With the generous support of many vendors BoP provides access to sophisticated research equipment. The MBL is in particular known for its marvelous advanced microscopy resources. The specific focus of the experimental modules is in constant flux. The 2010 BoP course featured modules focused on the regulation of gene expression in Plasmodium and Giardia (Deitsch & Elmendorf), immune responses to Toxoplasma, Schistosoma, and Heligmosoides (Belkaid & McDonald), the vector biology of sandflies and mosquitoes (Valenzuela & Barrilas-Mury), and the cell biology of Trypansoma and Toxoplasma (Field & Ward).

Lectures of the 2010 BoP course:

Heidi Elmendorf (Georgetown University)

“Regulation of Gene Expression in Giardia: When Simple Can Be Complicated”

Kirk Deitsch (Weill Medical College of Cornell University) "The role of mysterious ncRNAs in controlling antigenic variation in Plasmodium falciparum"

Ke Hu (Indiana University)

“How Toxoplasma gondii constructs its cytoskeleton”

Shulamit Michaeli (Bar-Ilan University, Israel) “Proteins translocation in trypanosomes and the novel stress induced mechanism SLS”

Photini Sinnis (New York University)

“The Journey of the Plasmodium Sporozoite: From Mosquito Midgut to Mammalian Liver”

Johanna Daily (Harvard School of Public Health)

“The application of clinical observations and omics to clinical issues in Plasmodium falciparum”

Iris Bruchhaus (Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Germany)

“Comparison of two genetically related Entamoeba histolytica cell lines derived from the same isolate with different pathogenic properties”

Barbara Burleigh (Harvard School of Public Health)

“The cell biology of Trypanosoma cruzi invasion and the impact of infection on the host transcriptome”

Patricia Johnson (UC Los Angeles)

"Trichomonas vaginalis cell surface determinants and pathogenesis"

Mahamadou Ali Thera (University of Bamako, Mali)

“Plasmodium falciparum genetic diversity and influence on the development of an effective malaria vaccine”

Michael Ferdig (University of Notre Dame)

"Systems Genetics of Complex Malaria Parasite Traits"

Markus Engstler (University of Wurzburg, Germany)

“Why morphology matters - a fashionably old-fashioned view on trypanosome cell biology”

Marc K. Jenkins (University of Minnesota)

“How CD4+ T cells remember infections”

Andrew S. MacDonald (University of Edinburgh, UK)

'The Immunobiology of Schistosoma mansoni'

Yasmine Belkaid (NIAID/NIH)

“Microbial host interaction at barrier surfaces”

Richard Grencis (University of Manchester, UK)

“Immunity to Gastrointestinal Helminths: more than meets the eye”

Judith Allen (University of Edinburgh, UK)

“Macrophage activation during helminth infection”

Chris Engwerda (Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia)

“Immunity to malaria”

David Sacks (NIAID, NIH)

“The influence of vector sand flies on immune response to Leishmania”

Phillip Scott (University of Pennsylvania)

“Immune responses to cutaneous leishmaniasis”

Ellen Robey (UC Berkeley)

“Visualizing Immune Responses in a Toxoplasma-mouse infection model”

Rick L. Tarleton (University of Georgia)

“Trypanosoma cruzi infection and Chagas disease”

Alan Sher (NIAID/NIH)

“Learning immunology from parasites”

Carolina Barillas-Mury (NIH)

“Mosquito immune responses that limit Plasmodium infection”

Jesus G. Valenzuela (LMVR, NIAID, NIH)

"Powerful biological activities from the saliva of blood-sucking insects"

Shaden Kamhawi (NIAID, NIH)

“What it takes to be a competent vector of leishmaniasis: Understanding sand fly midgut-parasite interactions”

Stephen Wikel (University of Texas)

"Tick biology and tick-borne diseases” and "Arthropod modulation of host defenses: implications for pathogen transmission”

Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena (Johns Hopkins University)

“What a peptide taught us about Plasmodium-host interactions”

Robert Sinden (Imperial College, UK)

“Biology of the Plasmodium parasite in the mosquito vector”

Mark Field (University of Cambridge, UK)

“Making and maintaining the trypanosome cell surface”

Gary Ward (University of Vermont)

“Small molecule approaches to studying Toxoplasma gondii motility and invasion”

Kai Matuschewski (Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Germany)

'The molecular make-up of a mature malaria sporozoite'

Freddy Frischknecht (University of Heidelberg, Germany)

“Visual approaches to study malaria parasites during transmission from mosquito to host”

Michael Ferguson (University of Dundee, UK)

“Glycoprotein biosynthesis in Trypanosoma brucei, and the long and winding road to drug discovery”

John Boothroyd (Stanford University)

“Woods Hole rave or Viennese waltz: how some Toxoplasma rhoptry proteins grab onto the host while others determine the character of the dance”

Mark Carrington (University of Cambridge, UK)

“Into the tsetse fly”

Jim McKerrow (UC San Francisco)

“Meeting the challenge of discovering and developing drugs for neglected tropical diseases" and "Parasite proteases: Lessons in evolution, biochemistry and parasitology

Isabel Roditi (University of Bern, Switzerland)

“One hundred years of sleeping sickness - sex, drugs and RNA”

Boris Striepen (University of Georgia)

“What do human parasites do with a chloroplast?”