The Graduate School

• Introduction
• Research
  • Pharmaceutics
  • Medicinal chemistry
  • Pharmaceutical biology and pharmacology
  • Pharmacy practice
• Flexible learning arrangements

Introduction

The Graduate School was founded in 1970 to develop and direct all graduate studies in the college.
Graduate matters are now administered by a graduate studies committee with elected members from each department. The committee is chaired by the associate dean (Graduate Studies) who represents the college on the Research Graduate School Committee of the university.

Research

Research facilities are available within all departments for students to undertake graduate work in experimental and theoretical areas of the pharmaceutical sciences.
Students may apply for entry to graduate study courses by arrangement with the associate dean (Graduate Studies). The following fields of research are available for graduate studies.

Pharmaceutics

• utilisation of the transdermal route for the delivery of drugs
• lipid based formulation design
• intestinal lymphatic transport of drugs
• factors affecting the absorption of drugs across the intestinal mucosa
• respiratory drug delivery
• physicochemical and analytical characterisations of new drug candidates
• stability and characterisation of protein drugs
• absorption of protein drugs after subcutaneous administration
• contributions of intestinal and hepatic metabolism to the bioavailability of drugs
• powder mixing and content uniformity studies

Medicinal chemistry

• synthesis and characterisation of bioactive molecules
• NMR spectroscopy
• computer-aided molecular design and computational chemistry
• protein chemistry and molecular biology
• lead compounds from natural products
• protein x-ray crystallography

Pharmaceutical biology and pharmacology

• pharmacological investigations on antipsychotics, opioids, cannabis and other drugs of abuse
• the pharmacology of gut secretion and antidiarrhoeal drugs
• neurotransmitter mechanisms, pre and postjunctional agonists and antagonists, receptor differentiation, receptor and signal transduction mechanisms
• adenosine and its receptors, tachykinin receptors
• the pathology and pharmacology of skin disease

Pharmacy practice

• quality usage of medicines, drug usage in the elderly, attitudes of patients to their medications and health professionals
• continuing pharmacy education
• attitudes of pharmacists to their professional roles
• pharmacist intervention in the prescribing cycle
• dose optimisation in oncology, spinal and infectious disease
• drug-related problems and rates of hospital admissions
• wound care and management

Flexible learning arrangements

The university is proud of its flexible learning arrangements. Students with family and/or work commitments can access honours and higher degree research programs on a part-time basis. Part-time scholarships are also available.
For more information on all these issues, contact the college's associate dean (Graduate Studies) or the Research Training and Support Branch of the university on (03) 9905 2059.

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