UE1 – Upgrade in Chemistry or Biology, Culture, Communication and Technology Watch

Contents:

This Teaching Unit aims to bring students from different fields to the same level to give them the fundamental scientific basis, mandatory for a good understanding of nanomedicines and molecular imaging.

Acquired skills:

• Understanding of drug’s life cycle
• Refresh / Upgrade in either chemistry or biology
• Soft skills: culture, communication and technology watch

UE2 – General pharmacology, Regulatory aspects and security, new trends and new tools

Contents:

This Teaching Unit deals with global features of drugs from their design/discovery to their clinical use, focusing on their theranostic capabilities. Through its courses, students will be able to understand how to design a drug, how it will interact with its target (with the subsequent effects), and what will be its fate in the body. Moreover, students will be initiated to regulatory aspects of particular theranostic drugs such as nanomedicines. They will also be able to understand and implement the methodologies which are mandatory to ensure a drug’s safety. Finally, students will be open-minded to new methodologies or research in the field of drugs focusing on theranostic.

Acquired skills:

• Basic strategies to identify a relevant target
• Basic drug design / pharmacodynamics / pharmacokinetics
• Basis to understand drug regulation and safety, especially in the field of theranostics (nanomedicines)
• Mind opening to new research trends

OR

You can choose a Teaching Unit from the Master Erasmus Munduns MAIA “Sensors and Digitization – Medical sensors”. Contact your supervisors to have more information about that option.

UE3 – Basic concepts in Pharmaco-imaging

Basic concepts in Pharmaco-imaging Part

Contents:

Today, pharmaco-imaging is the forefront of research both in medicine and in chemistry. This elemental unit aims at giving basis of different imaging modalities (ultrasound, CT, MRI, PET, SPECT, optical imaging) and to highlight the most recent developments. For each modality, corresponding equipment, applications, contrast agents and so on, will be reviewed and discussed and a focus will be made on the increasing use of optical imaging.

Acquired skills:

• To know the concept, mechanism, devices and applications of different imaging modalities: ultrasound, MRI, PET, SPECT, CT and optical imaging
• To know the advantages and the limits of the different imaging modalities
• To be able to choose the best imaging modality for a specific application
• To understand the concept of contrast agent for molecular imaging
• To know how to design a contrast for the different imaging modalities

Pharmaceutical Technology Part

Contents and acquired skills:

This part is divided into the following three parts:

1/ Preformulation

This sub-unit will tackle on:

• Introduction to the pharmaceutical development
• Introduction to the preformulation
• Differential Scanning Calorimetry and rheological studies
• X-ray Diffraction and Thermal Gravimetric Analysis

2/ Conventional Dispersed Systems

This sub-unit will deal with:

• Polymers and surfactants
• General stability cancepts of dispersed systems
• Microencapsulation

3/ Controls and Physicochemical Characterization

This sub-unit will develop:

• Microscopy approaches
• In vitro release testing

UE4 – Advanced Chemical Pharmaco-imaging / Pharmaco-imaging: applications

The fourth Teaching Unit is divised in two parts:

Advanced Chemical Pharmaco-imaging Part

Contents:

The first part of that teaching unitt is a detailed overview of molecular tools (biomarkers, contrast agents and probes based on small molecules or nanosystems) required for the practical implementation of biomedical imaging modalities. The emphasis will be put on the chemistry undelying the elaboration and the optimisation of phisical-chemistry and biological attributes of those molecular imaging agents. The theranostic concept will also be approached. This course’s content is articulated around those three units:

• 4.1 “Chemistry of labels, probes and contrast agents”
• 4.2 “Labelling techniques”
• 4.3 “Bimodal medical imaging agents and theranostic probes”

Educational objectives and skills acquired:

• Deeper knowledge in the main family of probes used in the practical implementation of the different modalities regarding non-invasive imaging
• Skills in bioconjugation and biomolecules labelling
• Integrating and knowing how to apply chemical, biological and pharmacological basis determining the conception of an imaging agent for a given biological target or a specific disease.

Pharmaco-imaging: Applications Part

Contents:

The second part of that teaching unit deals with advanced applications through dedicated units:

• 4.4 “Advanced imaging techniques”
• 4.5 “Data acquisition and processing”

Acquired skills:

• To deal with complex concepts and tasks in the field of preclinical and clinical imaging
• Ability to manage a complex project from the target to in vivo imaging (including images post-processing)

UE5 – Tutored Project

Contents:

The tutored project is a bibliographic work consisting in a description and a discussion of the state of art regarding students’ internship topic. It will focus on the current scientific context and the issues of the study as well as the objectives by detailing the methodological and technical approaches.

Aquired skills:

• Management of bibliography tools
• Project management
• Analytical and critical mind
• Oral and writing skills

UE6 – Nanovectors in Drug Delivery and Nanovectors and Lipoproteins

Contents:

The sixth Teaching unit is divided in two parts:

The first part is about synthetic nanovectors applied to active substances and genes’s delivery.

• Synthesis and chemicophysical characterization of organic and inorganic nanovectors
• Inorganic nanovectors’s application in health (magnetic targeting, hyperthermia, radiosensibilisation)
• Organic nanovectors’s application in cancer treatments, intestinal and cutaneous inflamatory diseases, infections

The second part is focused on natural and biomimetic lipidic nanovectors:

• Lipoproteins’s description and applications in health
• Molecular modelisation
• Biomimetic lipidic nanovectors’s synthesis and applications in therapy and imaging (liposomes, nanoemulsions)

Aquired skills:

• Master the physicochemical concepts for synthesis of organic and inorganic nanocarriers
• Know the scientific issues and the applications of organic and inorganic nanocarriers in biomedical applications
• Design new strategies in drug delivery and medical imaging using natural and biomimetic nanocarriers including lipoproteins.