Drug discovery and design

This unit will educate you on different approaches in drug discovery and design, using the typical pipeline of drug discovery and development as a foundation for your understanding. You will begin by examining how drug discovery and development has changed over the last 100 years, then move how to drug targets can be identified and validated. You will then look at how bioactive molecules can be discovered and how they can be further modified structurally to improve their performance as safe and effective therapeutics: The unit will guide you through various methods of discovery and development (including compound libraries, screening approaches, molecular modelling and structure-based drug design) both for small molecules and biologics. Lab classes will concentrate on developing a range of basic skills relevant to contemporary drug discovery. You will be able to test your newly-developed knowledge in a team environment by reporting on the discovery and development of a drug recently approved for human clinical use.