The Pharmaceutical Industry - setting the scene: an introduction
to the industry, some historical aspects of drug discovery, different
functions of medicines;
Selecting a Disease Area: describes the sort of issues which the
industry will consider in deciding what sort of drug they wish to
develop;
Selecting the target: introduces potential drug targets (enzymes,
receptors and ion channels) and uses examples of common diseases
to illustrate how different drugs act;
Initial Screening: describes techniques (high throughput screening)
and principles of using an assay to test large libraries of potential
compounds;
The Screening Cascade: covers the methods (enzyme assay, cell
assay, mode of action test, selectivity test and optimization) used
to identify a small number of potential compounds with which to
proceed into development;
Safety Testing and Clinical Trials: describes methods
of toxicity testing, and phase I, II and III of clinical trials;
Self-assessment section: contains a number of largely multiple-choice
questions covering each of the sections.
The program is highly interactive and uses several features to
promote this. For example, the main sections all have associated
student tasks/self-assessment questions, e.g., true/false questions
with feedback, drag-and-drop exercises, data interpretation exercises,
calculations, case histories, role-play decision-making group activities.
These are designed to consolidate knowledge and to allow students
to self-assess their understanding of the section they have completed.
They are also used to present additional information and explanations
through the feedback. Glossary (definitions of terms) and hotword/hypertext
links (fuller explanations of terms and concepts) are used throughout.
The section of multiple-choice questions allows students to self-assess
their knowledge.
The learning package is intended to be used either: to support
existing teaching of modules containing pharmacology, or for independent
study. Brief trials with high school students have indicated that
it would occupy students for one to two hours of study and that
it works best when students study in pairs.
Student Assignment
This highly interactive program takes the form of a ‘game’
and is designed to complement the interactive tutorial Medicines
— the discovery process which aimed to teach the principles
of the drug discovery process. This Student Exercise puts
students in the shoes of a project team working for a fictitious
pharmaceutical company Lion Pharmaceuticals. They have a brief to
identify three potential new medicines to treat prostate cancer
(the selected disease area) starting with the Company’s library
of compounds and an identified target (a key enzyme).
The team have to make crucial decisions at each step of the process.
Poor decisions trigger the intervention of a Project Manager who’s
job is to keep the team within budget and on schedule. He advises
the team when he intervenes but also penalizes them with the loss
of a ‘life’. The team have to complete the task with the
loss of fewer than five ‘lives’.
The game is divided into four sections which follow closely the
approach of the tutorial program.
- High Throughput Screening — students must decide the number
of compounds from the library to test and, using a simulated spread-sheet
to help them, decide on the optimum use of resources (human and
machine) to complete the task.
- The Screening Cascade (enzyme assay, cell assay, mode of action
test) - students have to decide on the best way of conducting
this series of tests — either to develop and carry out the
tests in series or in parallel.
- Compound Profiling - here students study the properties (water
solubility, toxicity, ionic charge and chemical ‘attractiveness’)
of the small number of families of compounds and singletons and
select three to take into the final stage.
- Animal (in vivo) testing - at this stage there are ten
possible compounds remaining. Students have to reduce this number
to three by eliminating ‘candidates’ from results of
five ‘in vivo’ studies in animals. They are presented
with results of the compounds on: plasma concentration (after
oral dosing in mice); target enzyme activity in rats; prostate
gland weight in rabbits in which prostate cancer has been induced;
tumour cell growth rate; and preliminary safety and toxicity testing.
The emphasis is on reinforcing their learning and highlighting
important principles of the discovery process e.g. efficient use
of resources, use relatively inexpensive in vitro testing
for preliminary screening, in vivo (animal) studies are expensive,
the discovery process is long (several years) and very costly. |