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Our pharmacy course started in 1895,
when the Birmingham Central Technical College was founded. This later became Aston University
and the Aston Pharmacy School was established. This means - therefore - that
our history of innovation in pharmacy education spans more than a hundred years
Our current four-year MPharm degree programme has been specifically designed to meet the
rapidly changing requirements of the practice of pharmacy.
In designing and developing our pharmacy degree
we consult with major employers of pharmacists, professional bodies and government agencies.
Our MPharm is accredited by the General Pharmaceutical Council.
After satisfactory completion of a pre-registration year,
our graduates obtain registration as a pharmacist.
In addition to our MPharm programme,
we now offer a range of postgraduate programmes too.
We have a postgraduate diploma for overseas pharmacists
which is aimed at pharmacy graduates who gained their degree outside the EU.
It enables pharmacists to enter a pre-registration year in the UK and they can then register as a pharmacist.
We also offer a range of MSc programmes in pharmaceutical sciences.
MSc students will typically follow a course
that is 2/3 taught and the other 1/3 is a self-directed research project.
The students have the use of the teaching lab
and the pharmaceutics research lab for their project work.
All pharmacy programmes are looked after by our friendly and helpful administrative team
who are located in the school office on the sixth floor of the main building.
Located near our school office is the Sumpner Lecture Theatre. This is one of the university's largest lecture theatres
and is frequently use for pharmacy lectures, as is the Great Hall
and many other smaller lecture theatres, variously located around the main building.
We have a range of newly refurbished specialist pharmacy teaching facilities
on the fourth floor of the university's main building.
MPharm students are also taught in our modern Medicines Management Suite
which is a dedicated learning environment, delivering online learning strategies.
Near to the Medicines Management Suite
is another pharmacy teaching laboratory, where practical classes for our MPharm programme take place.
At the end of this lab is the Materials Processing and Manufacturing Suite,
a dedicated facility for the manufacture of solid dosage forms,
such as tablets and capsules.
We also have an Aseptic Suite which is a purpose-built facility for the training
of students working in sterile product manufacture.
This sterile working environment is "limited access only", requiring clothing changes
and specialist manipulation techniques, to avoid contamination of products.
Drugs, such as freeze-dried antibiotics
or vaccinations can be prepared before they are sent to hospital wards for patient administration.
Our student IT suites are conveniently situated near to the pharmacy teaching facilities
and are available for use by Life and Health Sciences students
24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have a range of pharmacy research laboratories
that our MPharm and MSc students have access to, for their project work.
For example, in our Pharmaceutics Research Laboratory,
students can access our SympaTec machine for measuring small particles
such as liposomes that are used in drug-delivery. Students also have access to a Zeta Plus zeta potential analyzer
which measures sample size and also the surface charge of particles.
Research interests in this laboratory include
formulation engineering of conventional and DNA vaccines,
the enhancement of solubility and delivery of bioactive molecules
using colloid science and technology and delivery of drugs
and vaccines and gene therapies, using liposomes, niosomes
and other novel particulate systems.
This lab also has a high-performance liquid chromatography or HPLC machine,
one of the many in the School of Life & Health Sciences. Project students can use this to separate,
identify and quantify compounds. Research here focuses on the optimization of drug delivery profiles
using a range of routes - ophthalmic, transdermal, pulmonary, oral and nasal.
Along the corridor in the Toxicology Research Lab
molecular biology techniques are used to amplify DNA
using polymerase chain reaction. Cells are also grown here under sterile tissue culture conditions.
Research interests in this lab include the design of in-vitro neurotoxicity assay systems
using human cells and tissues, toxicological testing,
the development of anti-tuberculosis drugs and the study of toxicological effects associated with diabetes.
Also on this corridor is the Pharmacology and Electrophysiology unit.
MSC Pharmacology students use this laboratory for their projects.
this is an electrophysiology rig
showing how tissue is activated with drugs.
Research interests of this group include
the role of the primary motor cortex in epilepsy and Parkinson's disease.
There has been a significant spend on new facilities on this corridor
to create a new mass-spectrometry laboratory, a medicinal chemistry laboratory,
and a new analytical laboratory.
In the mass spectrometry laboratory, we use our suite of modern instruments to
separate and measure the weights of molecules
and determine the amounts of these in different samples. We can use this to identify the molecules
and quantify the amounts present in a sample and how these change under different conditions.
This is being used to look at many different questions in biology and human health
such as identifying damage to proteins that result from ageing
and how this changes their function and identifying molecules that can be used to diagnose diseases and monitor treatments.
Our industry-standard Medicinal Chemistry Laboratory
is used for the synthesis of new molecules that can be used to manipulate biological systems
and understand how they work, and for the discovery of new drugs.
The Analytical Laboratory contains a range of instrumentation
used to produce some of the tools that we employ in the laboratory
and for the analysis of molecules using spectroscopy and chromatography.
For example, we make microarrays of biomolecules such as DNA,
proteins and lipids, for the identification of complex interactions
that control important processes in biology.
Although our pharmacy staff have many great research achievements,
perhaps the one that the Aston pharmacy school is best known for
took place in our Cancer Research Laboratory.
It was in this lab that the anti-cancer drug Temozolomide was discovered.
This drug has recently reached sales of one billion dollars per annum.
Current research interests at the Cancer Research Group
include cacxexia, which is weight loss in cancer patients.
For more information about our pharmacy programmes and research, please visit our website.