Offered
Parkville Second semester 2008 (Day)
Synopsis
The principle aim of this unit is to lay the foundations of the field of pharmaceutical science including drug target identification, the process of drug discovery and
medicinal chemistry. Participants are introduced to the following areas as they apply to pharmaceutical science; theory and practice of statistical analysis, physiology and pharmacology, identification of targets for drug intervention, the process of drug discovery, new biomolecular approaches to therapy in the context of drug discovery, chemical synthesis of drugs; structure-based drug design and lead optimization.
Objectives
After completion of this unit, students will be expect to be able to: describe the statistical principles behind significance testing of experimental data, analyse statistically experimental data and determine statistical significance, appreciate the importance of statistics in pharmaceutical sciences, describe how drugs have been discovered in the past and how molecular biological methods have revolutionized the science of drug discovery, understand how molecular, cellular, tissue and in vivo biological assays each play a role in drug discovery, understand the principles involved in chemical synthesis of drugs, appreciate the principles of chemical structure-based drug design and understand the processes of lead optimization.
Assessment
3 quizzes during semester totalling 15%, an oral presentation 15% and a 3 hour final examination 70%. Students are required to pass all forms of assessment to pass the unit.
Contact hours
36 lectures, 9 hours of tutorials and 9 hours practical work. Successful completion of this unit will require participants to allocate an average of 1.5 hour per week for 12 weeks additional study time (a total of 72 hours per study period).
