{"135791":{"#nid":"135791","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Atlanta Pharma Community Collaborates on Drug Development Education","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDoctoral students from four Atlanta universities worked together recently to learn how to develop new pharmaceutical products during a two-week interdisciplinary short course at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The course\u2019s final presentations were held June 11.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETwo dozen students from Georgia Tech, Mercer University, Georgia State University and Emory University heard lectures from Atlanta-based medical professionals, researchers, and pharmaceutical company leaders \u2013 and worked in teams to develop plans for how a drug company might convert a promising molecule into a real product. To demonstrate the interdisciplinary nature of the drug development process, each team included pharmacists, bio-scientists, chemists and engineers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEach team was given information from the scientific literature on a drug in early stage development by a pharmaceutical company, and was asked to put together and justify a detailed plan for bringing that molecule forward into a drug product useful in clinical medicine,\u201d said Mark Prausnitz, the course\u2019s leader and a Regents\u2019 professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESpeakers from the Atlanta pharmaceutical community talked to the students on such topics as drug discovery and design, drug manufacturing, formulation, pre-clinical studies, design of clinical trials, marketing, project teamwork and R\u0026amp;D reports. In addition to Prausnitz, other instructors included:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAjay Banga, professor and chair of pharmaceutical sciences at Mercer University;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAndy Bommarius, professor of chemical \u0026amp; biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EBobby Khan, chief medical officer at Atlanta Clinical Research Centers;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EJoseph Patti, co-founder and senior vice president of R\u0026amp;D at Inhibitex;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EHarold Shlevin, director of bioscience commercialization at Georgia Tech and former CEO of Solvay Pharmaceuticals;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EJames Sikorski, a consultant and former vice president of medicinal chemistry at AtheroGenics;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EJaipal Singh, adjunct professor of biology at Georgia Tech and former chief scientific officer at Saint Joseph\u2019s Translational Research Institute;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ECharlie Thompson, a principal at Axtria;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EWes Wynans, director of leadership education and development at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents were pleased with the opportunity to see the entire drug development process and to work closely with peers from other universities. \u201cWorking in an interdisciplinary team allowed us to connect the dots between all of the medical, scientific and business aspects of bringing a drug to the market,\u201d said Meera Gujjar, a graduate student in pharmaceutical sciences at Mercer University.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChris Quinto, a Ph.D. student from Georgia Tech, found students from other backgrounds helpful in sharing their expertise in the complex drug development process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Mercer students in my group were a great resource in helping explain and make sense of the data and terminology in the papers that we read,\u201d Quinto said. \u201cWhat I found most interesting in this class was how the drug development research teams consist of many different specialties, each of which is vital to the final outcome of the drug development process.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe course is expected to be offered once every two years. \u201cThis shows how Atlanta universities are working together and with local pharmaceutical companies to build a stronger pharmaceutical research and education community here,\u201d Prausnitz added.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDoctoral students from four Atlanta universities worked together recently to learn how to develop new pharmaceutical products during a two-week interdisciplinary short course at the Georgia Institute of Technology.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Atlanta pharma community worked together to help doctoral students learn about drug development."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2012-06-16 13:17:02","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:12:22","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2012-06-16T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2012-06-16T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"135781":{"id":"135781","type":"image","title":"Drug Development Short Course","body":null,"created":"1449178685","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:38:05","changed":"1475894766","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:46:06","alt":"Drug Development Short Course","file":{"fid":"194801","name":"pharmaceutical_development_june_2012.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pharmaceutical_development_june_2012_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/pharmaceutical_development_june_2012_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":997394,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/pharmaceutical_development_june_2012_0.jpg?itok=78IQWAsC"}}},"media_ids":["135781"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"131","name":"Economic Development and Policy"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1704","name":"chemical \u0026 biomolecular engineering"},{"id":"2777","name":"drug development"},{"id":"495","name":"Mark Prausnitz"},{"id":"7031","name":"pharmaceutical"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(404) 894-6986\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}