Drug Discovery Development Biotechnology

AY2018/2019 Semester 2

This course is designed to tackle one of the most important issues in healthcare - the discovery and development of safe and effective drugs against diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and viral infections as well as for disease prevention and health improvement. It aims to equip you with the knowledge and skills that are in great need in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. This is an interdisciplinary course, combining chemistry with biology and pharmacology and dealing with both small-molecule drugs and biologics. It covers the basic concepts and principles of the three phases of drug action (pharmaceutics, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics), the techniques and methods used in drug discovery and development (target identification and validation, lead discovery and optimization, preclinical and clinical trials), and specific topics on drugs acting on different classes of drug targets.