Course Gaps at University of Lagos

Introduction: Medicines and discovery processes. Initial stages: Target discovery; applications of molecular biology, in silico methods and assays; lead discovery; lead optimization; biomarkers. Measurement of drug properties: assay techniques; agonists (full, partial, inverse and biased); competitive antagonists. In vivo models; pharmacokinetic profiles of compounds; pharmacogenetics and formulations. Pre-clinical safety assessment including acute toxicity evaluation, subacute and chronic toxicity studies, reproductive toxicity, carcinogenicity studies, mutagenicity and mechanistic toxicity studies. Limitations of preclinical studies. Problems associated with drug discovery and development. Later stages: Pharmaceutical development; phases of clinical evaluation; ethics (informed consent, good clinical practice, participation criteria, sponsorship) and concepts in clinical trial design. Pharmacovigilance. e-Learning Activity Links are provided to additional resources (further reading, videos, on-line activities) to support the lecture content. Online self-assessment modules on the course content can be provided for formative feedback. Practical: Experiments are designed to reflect the topics covered including spectrophotometry, chromatography, flow cytometry.

Historical development of microbiology and the effects on health. Morphology of bacteria and fungi. Nutritional needs of microorganisms. Cultivation and isolation methods for microorganisms. Diagnostic techniques in relation to culture determination. Bacteria growth in culture and respective phases including death. Formation of colonies. Metabolism in microbial systems. Genetics (introductory). Introductory parasitology.

Fundamental concepts and techniques of organic chemistry. Functional group chemistry. Strengths of acids and bases. Introduction to stereochemistry of compounds. Molecular symmetry, racemisation and resolution methods.