Undergraduate - UnitPSC3112 - Drug discovery and development

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Offered	Parkville Second semester 2013 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr David Chalmers

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

Outcomes

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

The major approaches to drug discovery;
The process of identifying a drug target and the steps required to validate that target;
Drugs that treat infectious diseases and approaches to developing those drugs;
The importance of pharmaceutics in drug development;
Pharmacokinetics in drug development;
The clinical trial process;
Legal documentation of pharmaceutical product invention.

Assessment

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

Chief examiner(s)

Dr David Chalmers

Contact hours

Contact hours for on-campus students:
Thirty six 1-hour lectures
One 2-hour presentation session

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/pharm/current/