This major provides students with a detailed understanding of Microbiology and Immunology. It combines the study of infectious microbial agents, including opportunities to study bacteria, viruses and parasites, with the study of the host's immune responses, which are most often beneficial but sometimes detrimental to the host. It describes how these disciplines are studied and their application to a range of areas in the biomedical sciences. The major opens up careers in infectious disease, diagnostics, molecular biology, biotechnology, vaccinology, antimicrobial chemotherapeutics, biosafety and regulation, as well as post-graduate research into infectious agents, their genes and mechanisms of disease together with the various beneficial and harmful aspects of the immune system. It provides a basis for further study into medicine and other paramedical disciplines.