Lead drug discovery tactics, drug development, chemical synthesis, medicinal chemistry, biologics in drug discovery, modern toxicology studies for pre-clinical development, pharmacokinetic, drug delivery, analytical techniques including, NMR, separations, mass spectrometry, computational approaches including molecular modeling, QSAR, artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the drug-likeness and molecular property.
Athena Title
Modern Drug Discovery
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Part I. Modern Lead Drug Discovery 1. Gain an understanding of the principles of how to find a lead drug candidate, what a drug target is, and how to choose a better drug target; 2. Be able to apply basic principles of drug discovery in finding a lead drug candidate from natural or synthetic sources; 3. Be able to understand concepts of high-throughput screening (HTS), target-based drug design, random and phenotypic-based drug discovery; 4. Acquire knowledge of the various types of chemical libraries, their classifications, and their specific applications in lead identification and optimization; 5. Be able to understand the importance of toxicological data in drug development; 6. Develop the ability to select promising drug candidates by evaluating results from modern toxicity assessment methodologies; 7. Identify drug targets and how to choose the best target from among options.
Part II. Medicinal Chemistry and Analytical Techniques 8. Acquire a level of understanding required to develop a preliminary medicinal synthesis strategy for a collection of small molecules; 9. Gain familiarity with how small molecule structure and quality are validated in structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies and optimization of lead drug candidates; 10. Analytical techniques in modern drug discovery; 11. Develop an in-depth understanding of key analytical methodologies, including Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Mass Spectrometry (MS), and chromatographic purification techniques such as High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC), for structural elucidation and compound purification, as well as FDA-recommended approaches for analytical method validation.
Part III. Computational Approaches and Drug Screening. 12. Be familiar with the methodology necessary to carry out HTS, QSAR and NMR-based screening of compounds; 13. Obtain a level of understanding to be able to interpret HTS and QSAR results; 14. Be able to find background information on leads of interest via molecular modeling and Artificial intelligence (AI) applications; 15. Learn challenges and strategies involved in addressing the complexities and pressures associated with the drug discovery and development process.
Part IV. Pharmacokinetic approaches in drug discovery 16. Be able to understand bioavailability, cellular uptake of drug molecules, tissue distributions, drug concentration, calculations of half-life time, and systemic drug clearance 17. Be familiar with the ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion) properties of drug candidates. 18. Be able to understand Modern Drug delivery approaches, including nanoparticles, liposomes, and exosomes; 19. Understand FDA requirements and restrictions for clinical studies (IND filings and clinical studies).
Topical Outline
Part I. Modern Lead Discovery
Part II. Medicinal Chemistry and Analytical Techniques
Part III. Computational Approaches and Drug Screening
Part IV. Pharmacokinetic approaches in drug discovery
