Undergraduate - UnitPSC3112 - Drug discovery and development

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Synopsis

To explain the processes whereby new drugs are discovered and developed, from initial ideas through to full clinical use in man, and to illustrate the interphase between the biosciences and pharmaceutical business.

This will involve:

• drug lead identification
• target identification and validation
• proteomics, genomics and pharmacogenomics
• drugs to treat infectious diseases and the use of bioisosteres in drug design
• Target identification, validation and biological evaluation
• the importance and application of pharmaceutics in drug development
• the clinical trial process
• Intellectual Property
• Computational aspects of drug discovery

Outcomes

At the end of this unit students will have an understanding of:

1. The major approaches to drug discovery
2. The process of identifying a drug target and the steps required to validate that target
3. Drugs that treat infectious diseases and approaches to developing those drugs
4. The importance of pharmaceutics in drug development
5. Regulatory requirements for drugs
6. The clinical trial process
7. Legal documentation of pharmaceutical product invention
8. Computational methods in drug discovery

Assessment

Final exam (2 hour): 80%; written assignment: 10%; oral presentation: 10%.

Chief examiner(s)

Dr David Chalmers

Contact hours

36 x 1 hour lectures

Prerequisites

PSC2062 Pharmacology or PAC2182 Basis of Drug Action I
PSC2092 Molecular Cell Biology or PAC2151 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Additional information on this unit is available from the faculty at:

http://www.monash.edu.au/muso