In-vitro Techniques in Biochemistry and Pharmacology

By the end of the course, the students will be able to:

Knowledge

• demonstrate a firm knowledge of in vitro pharmacology 
• understand common in vitro experimental methodologies as applied in pharmacology
• demonstrate a basic knowledge of pharmacodynamic theory
• demonstrate a basic understanding of radioisotope theory in scintillation counting

Skills

• The students will acquire practical and theoretical abilities and skills in pharmacological in vitro research techniques that are applicable in both academic and biotech/pharmaceutical drug discovery research environments. The specific aim is to acquire the abilities and practical skills required to be able to work in a pre-clinical drug discovery research environment and/or communicate proficiently with other professionals.
• charecterise cortical neurons differentiated from human iPSCs by immunocytochemistry and qPCR
• execute neurotransmitter uptake experiments employing cultured neurons
• measure cAMP (second-messenger) in cultured cells by FRET
• conduct protein stabilization assays
• employ two-electrode voltage clamp (TEVC) electrophysiology technique as a functional assay of drugs affecting the operation of ion channels
• employ radioligand binding assays in drug investigations and interpret the resulting pharmacologial data
• determine the pharmacological profile of a series of unknown compounds

Competences

• work with and/or communicate proficiently with other professionals within the field of in vitro pharmacology
• design simple in vitro assays of drug activity including choosing the proper model system and assay conditions
• calculate and interpret pharmacological data (dose-response relationships)
• apply knowledge of in vitro pharmacology to evaluate pharmacological data in relation to the drug discovery process