Line I: Drug Discovery

Behind all new drugs lies a good idea, a discovery or a hypothesis. Drug Discovery denotes this early phase where scientists are hunting for new effective pharmaceutical substances. The objective is to discover or synthesize new chemical or biological compounds and to map their therapeutic but also possible unwanted effects in animals and people. 

In the discovery phase, work is often conducted in research groups that include experts in pharmacology and medicinal chemistry, among others. With Drug Discovery as a basis, you can continue in a professional position within drug discovery of the pharmaceutical industry, or in a PhD programme at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 

The Drug Discovery line provides the opportunity for various professional profiles, such as:

- focuses on that part of the discovery phase that involves biological/ pharmacological topics such as identification and validation of new drug targets, elucidating the mode of action of the drug substance, and investigating its effect on cloned receptors in test tubes, cell cultures, isolated organs and/or laboratory animals that mimic a specific human disease. All of these efforts are aimed at predicting the therapeutic effect of novel compounds in humans. 

- focuses on that part of the discovery phase involving chemical techniques, such as design and synthesis of new chemical compounds partly with the purpose of identifying potential drug substances and partly with the purpose of optimizing the pharmacological activity and selectivity of the compounds. Work in this phase of drug discovery also involves improvement of the physico-chemical properties of the compounds so that they will become potential drug substances with optimal characteristics.