Doctor of Philosophy in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Biostatistics offers an overview of relevant topics in biostatistical concepts. This course covers the essential tools for the data collections, analysis, visualization and interpretation in areas of biomedical sciences. Topics covered include general principles of study design; hypothesis testing, review of methods for comparison discrete and continuous data. Additionally, this course will provide tools for the analysis of large biological datasets from emerging fields such as genomics, proteomics and metabolomics.

This course mainly aims to augment student's experience upon broad view of state-of-the-art technologies, laboratory techniques, and equipment commonly used in pharmaceutical sciences research. Student will be rotated between different laboratories to gain diverse laboratory skills to conduct research in different areas. Students will be exposed to various scientific methodologies and laboratory techniques which would help them to choose appropriate research topic and potential supervisor for their research thesis.

This course focuses on the structure of good scientific writing. It provides guidance, recommendations and practical exercises for PhD students to become more effective writers and publish their research work in peer-reviewed journal. Topics include: basic principles of good scientific writing, a detailed description of the format of original research articles, literature search, literature reviews and grant proposals, practical recommendations for selecting a journal, responding to peer review comments, and writing for the general audience.

This team-based course will engage graduate students in understanding and applying the basics of starting or operating a business in any pharmacy discipline, including ventures based on new drugs, new delivery systems, community pharmacy, or pharmacy healthcare. Topics include business fundamentals, intellectual property, marketing, regulatory issues and more.

This course introduces students to the academic research process and includes weekly discussion of current topics in pharmacy by students and faculty members. This course also aims to develop the written, verbal, non-verbal, and communication skills of students. During the course, students will give a presentation about a certain topic followed by a discussion in which all students are evaluated based on participation. Students should also complete a short essay assignment based on each presentation.

This course introduces students to the academic research process and includes weekly discussion of current topics in pharmacy by students and faculty members. This course also aims to develop the written, verbal, non-verbal, and communication skills of students. During the course, student will give a presentation of a recent topic in his/her field of specialization, and they will also deliver a presentation about their research proposal followed by a discussion. Students should also complete a short essay assignment about the presented topics.

This course introduces students to the academic research process and includes weekly discussion of current topics in pharmacy by students and faculty members. This course also aims to develop the written, verbal, non-verbal, and communication skills of students. During the course, students will give a presentation of a recent topic in their field of specialization, and they will deliver a presentation about their research findings followed by a discussion. Students should also complete a short essay assignment about the presented topics.

The course will focus on the bioanalytical methods and techniques for the analysis and detection of biomolecules and biologically active molecules including small drugs, drug metabolites, peptides, enzymes, proteins, and oligonucleotides in various biological matrices such as blood, plasma, serum, urine and extracts from tissues.

This course will cover the advances in phytochemical discovery and development of natural products for therapy and pharmaceutical industry. The course will cover the pharmaceutical biotechnology techniques used to produce natural products by tissue culture, biotransformation and several synthetic biology approaches. Tissue culture techniques will include growing active cells in order to maintain genetically engineered clones that are rich in medicinal compounds and their manipulation in bioreactors for the commercial production. The course also will cover structure modifications of phytomedicines using microbial biotransformation. Synthetic biology approaches including metabolic engineering techniques will include tools used in engineering and building biosynthetic pathways of major classes of medicinal compounds and their manipulation in heterologous hosts including E. coli, yeast and fungi.

Genomic, proteomic, and bioinformatics research are all part of the modern multi-step process of drug design and development, which results in the identification of new pharmacological entities with novel modes of action. In this course, students will learn current proteomics workflows including experimental design, mass spectrometry and large-scale proteome-data analysis required for a comprehensive understanding of disease mechanism, discovering the mode of action of new compounds, search of new drug targets and drug design. The main goal of this course is to train students to identify novel opportunities and potential applications for proteomics approaches in their drug development research program.

The course will focus on the chemical aspects of recent success stories of drugs approved by the FDA or other drug regulatory authorities, as well as drug candidates that passed from preclinical to clinical studies. Failure stories of drugs withdrawn from the market in addition to drug candidates that failed in preclinical and clinical trials will be studied also from chemistry point of view. Structure-activity relationships, pharmacodynamic, and pharmacokinetic parameters behind the success or failure of the said molecules will be taught. In addition, different drug design approaches related to them will be covered. Applications of artificial intelligence and computer-based approaches in drug design and discovery will be covered as well. Moreover, diastereoselective and asymmetric synthesis methodologies of 3D molecules will be taught.

The purpose of a systems biology course is to gain a comprehensive understanding of development, physiology, metabolism, and gene regulatory networks by studying simultaneously, all genes, proteins, and metabolites in an organism.

This course provides the student with the knowledge and technical skills required for preparation and evaluation of various pharmaceutical formulations and drug delivery systems. Emphasis is placed on methods used in fabrication and optimization of drug delivery systems, physicochemical characterization techniques, mechanisms of drug release, parameters to consider for determination of in vitro drug release, techniques for measuring, calculation and representation of drug release by diffusion, in vitro and in vivo assessments, functionalization of drug delivery systems for targeted delivery of drugs and methods used for evaluation of permeation across blood-brain barrier.

The course covers the wide microbiological applications in pharmaceutical products. Essentials of microbiological quality assurance and quality control of pharmaceutical products including bioburden determination, pyrogen and sterility testing will be discussed. The course provides also an overview about the natural and recombinant microbial pharmaceuticals as well as the bacterial drug delivery systems. Advanced and rapid microbiological techniques used in pharmaceutical contaminants identification will be highlighted.

This course covers in-depth knowledge and recent advances in controlled, sustained, and targeted delivery of drugs, peptides, and genetic materials. This course will introduce students to pharmaceutical and therapeutic limitations of conventional medicines and applications of nanotechnology-based targeted delivery systems for improving the therapeutic outcomes and avoiding the off-target effects. A variety of targeted delivery systems will be covered with particular emphasis on methods of fabrication, formulation design, evaluation and biomedical application. Students will also be introduced to current challenges in nanomedicine, recent adaptations in nanomedicines including multi-functionalization and biomimetic delivery systems, as well as regulatory considerations for targeted delivery systems.

This course provides the student with the essential information about the various stages of the drug development and new drug approval process. The course will focus on providing the students with the principles of pharmaceutical processing, such as filtration, milling, mixing, drying, and compression of pharmaceutical solids. The course also deals with the production and quality control of tablets, capsules, liquid dosage forms, semi-solid dosage forms, and sterile products. Furthermore, the course will provide the students with key information about production pilot plant scale-up techniques and various types of packaging materials.

This course is designed to provide the students with advanced knowledge and hands-on training on how to perform, analyze and interpret in vivo pharmacokinetic studies using different experimental designs and statistical methods. The course will discuss pharmacokinetic modeling, compartmental and non-compartmental analysis, PK-PD modeling, non-linear PK, and data analysis using relevant software. In this course, the effect of administering nanomedicines on the biodistribution and the PK/PD association of incorporated drugs will also be discussed. Furthermore, PK/PD relationship, in vitro/in vivo correlation, population PK, allometry, bioavailability, and bioequivalence of traditional pharmaceutical dosage forms as well as novel drug delivery systems including biosimilars will be discussed.

This course will focus on the molecular basis of drug action and explore how cutting-edge biotechnology and biomedical research can advance pharmacological knowledge, increasing our understanding of how drugs work. The course is designed to offer flexibility in different emphasis in a given year and to utilize students' special research interests. The following areas will be covered; genetic variability in drug action, protein structure-activity relationships, receptor-ligand interactions, signal transduction, biochemical and molecular mechanisms of recent medications for different cardiovascular, central nervous system, endocrine, and respiratory disorders.

This course focuses on the various methods of screening newly developed drugs or extracts of medicinal plants for their pharmacological activity. The course will also cover the general aspects of bio-and-chemical assays of pharmacologically active new drugs or constituents of medicinal plant extracts.

This course is designed to provide an overview of the basics and applications of neuropharmacology. The course introduces learners to an experimental evaluation of the molecular mechanisms regulating the Nervous system and their implications in both health and disease. This will be achieved by establishing an overview of the organization and structure of both the central and autonomic nervous system. The overview will be followed by an evaluation of the role of different neurotransmitters in both health and disease. The knowledge obtained from the aforementioned modules will be incorporated into a critical evaluation and understanding of the pharmacologic basis of the management of different neurologic diseases. Furthermore, the course provides a detailed evaluation of the blood-brain barrier and neuroplasticity and their roles in normal and pathological conditions. Additionally, the course will provide the student with essential understanding of the experimental models used to study different aspects of the nervous system.

The course focuses on using medicines from traditional systems, including evidence-based studies on both crude drugs and purified natural compounds. In addition, the utilization of natural products as pharmacological tools in the lead discovery of new major therapeutically active compounds will be studied, including quality control, safety assessments, and molecular pharmacology. Major ethnopharmacology-related databases will be analyzed to give insight on the possibility of increasing the success rate of drug discovery other than random bioprospecting.

This course will focus on the study of the physiological functioning of the immune system in states of both health and disease and the pharmacologic basis of modulating these functions. Topics will cover the role of innate and acquired immune responses in various immunological areas including autoimmune diseases, transplant rejection and immunotherapy and the study of the interaction between the immune system and cancer cells.