4th year pharmacology

4TH YEAR PHARMACOLOGY (PM417)

Course Coordinator

Dr. Eilís Dowd,

Email: eilis.dowdnuigalway.ie

Telephone: 091 492776 (outside); Ext 2776 (inside)

Course Structure

The 4th Year Pharmacology course is available to 4th Year undenominated Science and denominated Biomedical Science degree programme and carries a weighting of 60 ECTS for undenominated students and 48 ECTS for denominated students.  The 4th Year Pharmacology programme builds on the Second and Third Year programmes.  The material is delivered not only in the traditional lecture format, but also in the form of Seminars (both of a research and literature nature) Journal Clubs and workshop/tutorial sessions.  In addition, there is an individual research project which occurs during the first semester.  The breakdown of the various components for undenominated and denominated students is as follows:

  Component                 Undenominated                      Denominated

                                    %                    ECTS              %                    ECTs

Written papers

Paper 1                        10                      6                    N/A

Paper 2                        12.5                   7.5                 10                      6

Paper 3                        12.5                   7.5                 10                      6

Paper 4                        12.5                   7.5                 10                      6

Paper 5                        12.5                   7.5                 10                      6

Year’s Work & Oral

Research Project          20                    12                    18                    14

Literature Project            5                      3                    N/A

Computing Test              2.5                   1.5                   3                      2

Journal Club                    2.5                   1.5                   3                      2

Oral                                   10                      6                    16                    10

Total                           100%              60 ECTS         80%                48 ECTS                                

 NB, For denominated Biomedical Science students, the remaining 20% (12 ECTS) of marks is derived from Computing and IT modules.

Lectures

The lecture programme covers 5 distinct areas, each of which will be a written paper:

• Principles of Toxicology (PM305), not taken by denominated students
• CNS Drug Development: CNS drug discovery; animal modelling; clinical efficacy; preclinical and clinical safety; novel therapeutic approaches.
• Special topics in Pharmacology: Biopharmaceuticals; drug delivery; molecular drug development; immunopharmacology.
• Molecular Pharmacology and Signalling: Gene therapy; drug targets including G-protein coupled receptors, transcription factors, cancer.
• Experimental Pharmacology: Data recording; ethics; variability in experimental design; modelling; critical evaluation of scientific literature; abstract preparation.

Coursework

Research Project

At the beginning of Semester I, each student will be allocated a project, which will be supervised by a member of staff. The project is divided into 3 segments:

Segment 1: Information retrieval, skills acquisition in relevant methodologies.  This runs for 3 weeks from Monday, 14th September 2009 through to Friday, 2nd October 2009, when each student will present a Seminar on the background and plan of the project.

Segment 2: "Live phase" during which all experiments will be conducted and data generated.  This runs for 6 weeks from Monday, 5th October 2009 through to Friday, 9th October 2009.

Segment 3: Writing up the research project and preparing a Seminar.  This runs for 3 weeks from Monday, 16th November 2009 through to Friday, 4th December 2009.  The Seminar presentation will take place mid-way through the writing up segment.  N.B. Friday, 4th December 2009 is the deadline for submission of the laboratory report.

Other Coursework

Computer Test : this is a data handling and presentation exercise which involves summarising pharmacological data in a document format.

Journal Clubs : this involves reading and critically evaluating a research paper for discussion with other members of the class.

Literature Seminars (undenominated students only): a subject will be provided for the students to prepare an essay, and also to deliver to the Department and fellow students as a Seminar. This occurs in Semester II.

4th Year Course Handbook

A Course Handbook will be provided to each student at the beginning of the year, providing further information and guidelines on the activities of the 4th Year Pharmacology programme.

Examinations

There will be five (four in the case of Biomed. students) 3-hour written papers, all of which will take place during the Summer (except for Toxicology which will take place at the end of Semester 1).  The remaining marks are allotted to the coursework and oral examination.  The marks breakdown is summarised overleaf.

Programme Feedback

At the end of each Semester, students will have an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback in the form of questionnaires, as well as liaising with their class representatives.

Class representatives

There will be two student representatives elected, one from the Undenominated Science stream and one from the Biomedical Science stream, who will represent the class and participate in the Staff-Student meetings, one of which takes place in the middle of each Semester.  These representatives will be elected at the end of September.

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