Course Identification

• Introduction drug discovery.

• From target to Lead - overview and general concepts.

• Literature review & screening technologies

• General concepts for biochemical and cell-based assays.

• The current status of drug discovery in industry, biotech and academia.

• Methods to analyze in-vitro biological assay data.

• Analysis of images from High Content Screening.

• Screening of biochemical and cell based assays against a small molecule library (proof-of-concept screen).

Introduction to medicinal chemistry

Introduction to computational chemistry

• ADME-Tox assays (e.g. cell viability, apoptosis, cardiotoxicity and mitochondrial toxicity).

Practical Training Sessions

Participants will experience hands-on training sessions using experimental methods to provide a foundation for applying in-vitro approaches in drug discovery.

The course takes place at the INCPM, drug discovery facility.

The Drug Discovery unit is a part of Israel Nation Center of Personal Medicine (INCPM). Our facility is unique in Israel and serves as a “bridge” between academic research and pharmaceutical industry.

During the course, students will learn about principles, methods and goals of Drug Discovery and High Throughput Screening. Terminology and experimental “know how” will be discussed: theory, approaches, experimental pipeline etc. Students will practically perform different types of the experiments demonstrating HTS methods. The students will learn about data collection, data analysis and statistical considerations.

Students will be familiar with the basic principles of the drug discovery field. They will understand what are the considerations taken when designing a non-biased drug discovery project. They will have the tools to analyze High Throughput- and High Content- Screening data. They will get an introduction to how to prioritize bioactive materials and also a glimpse into chemical biology in the contest of drug discovery.