General Surgery

Drug discovery and development is an expensive multi-disciplinary effort dependent on chemistry, structural biology, molecular and cell biology, pharmacology, physiology, statistics, computer sciences, engineering, medicine, law and business. It is a major challenge to incorporate all these fields into a single course, however it is also an opportunity to provide advanced students with a unifying context in which to apply knowledge from foundation courses. Rather than simply describing the drug discovery process, an essential goal of this text is to introduce the key decisions that are involved, the types of information needed to make these decisions, and the types of experiments used to obtain that information. In my teaching I have found that focusing on core concepts makes the subject accessible to a wider range of students and facilitates the integration of the knowledge into a context that is accessible and meaningful. This approach also serves to reinforce basic skills of research design and interpretation, and of data-driven decision-making skills relevant for a large number of potential learning and career directions. This book is intended to provide students with an understanding of the primary steps in the drug discovery and development process, key information needs associated with the decisions that govern the progression of projects from lab to clinic to market, and major research approaches used to provide information, support decision-making, and identify/prioritize candidate drug targets and candidate molecules. Along with a focus on the decision-making process, the text will emphasize the fundamental principles of science. Textboxes will highlight core concepts, techniques, and historic case examples, including examples from global infectious diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness. End-of-chapter questions, a glossary and a math appendix will ensure that the text is accessible to upper-level undergraduates and graduate students.