Practical Aspects of Drug Discovery: At the Interface of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacology

Institut Pasteur de Montevideo, Uruguay 14-18 November 2022

This programme was open to applicants from institutes based in Latin America and the Caribbean, and with a background knowledge of any discipline related to drug discovery.

With our colleagues in Universidad de la Republica Uruguay, and Wellcome Connecting Science we were pleased to be able to offer this programme at the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo.

This programme has been designed to provide an overview of the entire drug discovery process, from screening and hit discovery, assay development, drug design and an introduction to pre-clinical and clinical development.

With a mix of lectures, case-studies, and discussions, we focus on the need for drug discovery in Latin America and how these approaches can be applied in the regional context and environment.

Target to Candidate: An Introduction to Drug Discovery

University of São Paulo, Brazil (online) 2022

Universities of Pretoria & South Africa, South Africa (online) 2021

This course has been designed to give scientists a flavour of how a drug project goes from idea to pre-clinical candidacy.  Drug Discovery is highly collaborative, expensive and time consuming but reaps rewards of single dose single cures, vaccinations, treatments etc.  Our course highlights how to start and progress a drug discovery campaign with real life examples from experts working in this area of science, both academia and industry.  By utilising a series of interactive talks, workshops and tutorials, participants will learn the success, failures and challenges of drug discovery.

An Introduction to HPLC and Mass Spectrometry

Ghana (online), 2021

To support our partners in Ghana, we developed a short course in the theory of HPLC and MS.

As part of a larger project with Ghana, funded by the Academy of Medical Sciences, a series of working groups were organised.  The ability to understand HPLC and MS was an area identified for training development.

This short course is to be delivered online to partners from 5 institutes in Ghana.

Drug Discovery Mission

Online, 2021

Drug Discovery Mission (DDM) is designed as an interactive tool to understand the processes involved in drug
discovery. Drug discovery is a highly collaborative process that utilizes scientists from all disciplines. Without this
multi-disciplinary approach, it would not be possible for drugs to make it to market. DDM will ask participants to step outside of their comfort zone by exposing them to all aspects of the pre-clinical drug discovery process.

For further information about the programme please see the course page.

If you are interested in organising this course for your institute, please speak to Lauren Webster.

Drug Discovery Training

College of Medicine, Malawi 2019

We returned to Malawi for a 2nd visit in 2019, this time adding in DMPK to the training programme.  Having spent 6 months with us, Happy Nyirongo helped develop a training module for students, and helped pilot this module to a group of lecturers, PhD and MSc students from College of Medicine and Malawi University of Science and Technology.  For more details on this programme please see here.

Practical Aspects of Drug Discovery: At the Interface of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacology

H3D, University of Cape Town, South Africa 2019

In collaboration with the Wellcome Genome Campus and the Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D), we ran the first overseas Practical Aspects of Drug Discovery course.

Delivering a week of interactive lectures, workshops and discussion sessions, the trainers from WCAIR and H3D gave an insight into all aspects of drug discovery research.  Covering theoretical, practical and organisational aspects of small molecule and natural product drug discovery.

Chemistry and Biology for Drug Discovery

College of Medicine, Malawi 2018

We delivered two weeks of training for researchers from throughout Malawi on biological assay techniques, HPLC, NMR and isolation chemistry.  Find out more.

The training was delivered in the Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi.