Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

N/A

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

To provide students with practical research experience and interdisciplinary skills training, aligned to early-stage modern drug discovery pipeline.

Outline Of Syllabus

Every research project will encompass training in computational, synthetic and analytical chemistry, as well as biomolecular interactions and binding assays. All projects will be aligned with three distinct themes, encompasing unmet clinical need: antimicrobial drug discovery, neurodegeneration, and cancer research. Every student will be allocated to the individual academic supervisor/Principal Investigator and will become part of their research team.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

At the end of this module students will:
• understand the research requirements and techniques behind the modern drug discovery projects
• understand the key stages of drug discovery cycle: design, making, and testing/validation
• know procedures commonly used in the contemporary target-based drug discovery
• know how to integrate computational, synthetic and analytical techniques and link them to the structural biology background and validation assays

Intended Skill Outcomes

At the end of this module students will:

• Be able to interpret the output of modern computational chemistry software
• Run and interpret molecular docking experiments and use this to design drug-like molecules
• Be able to select appropriate synthetic methodology to plan a synthesis of a series of drug-like compounds
• Adhere to lab safety and good academic practice in the synthetic chemistry labs
• Apply their synthetic chemistry skills in producing novel compounds
• Take accurate notes
• Reproduce specific computational, synthetic and analytical protocols
• Problem-solving
• Establish quality control and validation through binding assays
• Assess the overall efficiency, advantages and limitations of a drug discovery pipeline

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Most of the module involves practical work within the research laboratories (dry and wet labs), but also includes time for experimental design and some background work. Guided independent study includes time for background reading, project planning and writing and preparing reports, including the final dissertation.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Assessment of the project plan and the practical work performed during the project will be carried out by the project supervisor. The supervisor will provide the appropriate guidance throughout the project, offering advice and constructive criticism. The students will also be assessed by other members of academic staff: research reports of each stage-task will be formatively assessed, and the project presentation will be summatively assessed by the end of the module. This final dissertation, which will be double-marked, will provide an introduction to the research topic, results and discussion sections for each of the project tasks/stages, followed by their experimental write-up, conclusions and references.

General Notes

N/A