In April 2019, the training team headed down to H3D at the University of Cape Town to deliver a week long course “Practical Aspects of Drug Discovery: At the Interface of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacology”. WCAIR, H3D and Wellcome Genome Campus teamed up to deliver this training to 26 participants from all over the African continent. Participants came from 19 different institutes in 11 different countries to spend a week learning how drug discovery science works from the identification of a potential new molecule through to how clinical trials work.
Expert speakers were on hand to support the scientists learn how the chemists, biologists and pharmacologists interact with each other at various stages to investigate compounds for treating diseases.
The course has been run at the Wellcome Genome Campus for several years led by WCAIR Director Professor Paul Wyatt. This was the first time the course has been run in Africa as part of the ACSC Overseas Courses programme. In 2020 the course will be hosted by the Pasteur Institute Montevideo, Uruguay.
Read ‘Strengthening capacity for drug discovery research in Africa‘.