Postgraduate Medicine and Therapeutics 2020-2021

This course is designed to provide or revise the basic skills you will require for your MSc. These skills include basic laboratory skills and techniques, but also IT skills and the use of University of Aberdeen specific systems (e.g. MyAberdeen etc), writing skills, literature researching and analysis of journal articles. The overarching aim is to develop these skills to a level required to undertake graduate studies and projects in the medical science discipline areas.

The course focuses on the molecular mechanisms of drug action and how cutting edge research can advance current therapeutic approaches to disease.   The utility of molecular pharmacology will be highlighted in the context of current and future drug discovery for cardiovascular, neurological and metabolic diseases and cancer. 

This course will describe and review the use of medicinal compounds in man together with methods to assess and describe efficacy and toxicity. A number of exemplar disease areas and at risk populations will be selected and the drugs used to treat these conditions and populations discussed and explained. The importance of understand drug mechanisms of action and associated risk as well as benefit will be emphasised in a clinical setting. The course will consider both drugs in current use and those in development.

This course will cover the principles of toxicology including molecular toxicology and target organ toxicity, mechanisms of cell death, molecular carcinogenesis and safety evaluation of carcinogens, adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) and new alternative methods (NAMs). These elements will be taught around the processes involved in drug discovery and development and will include advanced learning on drug metabolism and drug transporters.  The course will also provide the principles and practice of risk assessment and regulatory toxicology.  External experts are invited to provide their unique expertise on a range of topics, which include regulatory aspects as well as an industrial perspective on the drug discovery process.

This course reviews a range of essential methodologies that are currently used in medical research from molecular technologies to human studies.  Experts in the various techniques will describe the fundamentals of the methodology and show how they can be applied.

Pharmacokinetics describe “what the body does to a drug” and thus is a central feature of applied pharmacology. The course will develop an understanding of the role that pharmacokinetics play in all aspects of drug administration, distribution, metabolism and excretion and how these effects can be modelled and predicted graphically and mathematically. Such modelling is a fundament of therapeutic regimen design, drug development, clinical pharmacology and drug safety and will be considered within all of these contexts providing a broad and relevant appreciation of the importance of pharmacokinetics to the pharmacologist

This course will provide you with an introduction to evidence-based medicine. It will also include a description of the elements of pharmaceutical research as well as of the drug development process.

The course will provide an understanding of the role of governance and regulatory requirements for clinical research and will be invaluable to researchers whether scientists or medics.