Course Description
Designed to train students on three principal objectives which comprise the second and third stages of a drug discovery pipeline. Beyond its own course objectives, this course also serves as the first of a three 2-credit course series that encompass aspects of the drug discovery pipeline.
Athena Title
Robotic Tech in Drug Discovery
Non-Traditional Format
This course will be taught 95% or more online.
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
1. The first objective will be to familiarize students with lead discovery, emphasizing the role of liquid handling and other types of robotics used in lead drug discovery. 2. The second objective will provide an entry-level introduction in the fundamentals of assay design for use in high-throughput screening. 3. The third objective will be to provide students with the practical considerations and basic programming strategies pertaining to the use of liquid handling robotics to carry out high-throughput screens of chemical libraries. Student Learning Outcomes 1. Students will be familiar with lead discovery processes and be able to identify suitable drug targets for lead discovery. 2. Students will be familiar with the drug discovery pipeline and be able to identify the technical and individual components of each phase. 3. Students will be familiar with the technical approaches used to facilitate high-throughput screening (HTS) for drug discovery. 4. Students will be familiar with how to program a TECAN Freedom EVO 100 robotic liquid handling robot to screen chemical libraries using established assays. 5. Students will have a base-level understanding necessary to start analyzing data generated by high-through-put screening for positive hit identification.
Topical Outline
1. Modern lead discovery and the drug discovery pipeline 2. Assays in a high-throughput screening environment 3. Introduction to liquid handling robotic technology 4. Basic Evoware programming 5. Intermediate Evoware programming 6. Liquid handling programming challenge 7. Cheminformatics and hit validation
Syllabus