Aims and Fit of Module

This module aims to: 1) provide students with an understanding of the principles which describe and control the effective delivery of drugs from their delivery systems to target sites; 2) enable students to appreciate the importance of the manufacturing process and the stability of drug formulation in the overall development of new products, and to examine selected ethical issues surrounding drug development and delivery.

Learning outcomes

A	Critically evaluate the design of drug delivery systems for various routes of administration.
B	Critically evaluate selected techniques used in the development of drug delivery systems.
C	Discuss current trends in drug targeting, biotechnology products and modified release drug delivery.
D	Identify and resolve technological and documented problems associated with the development of drug delivery systems.
E	Demonstrate understanding of the emerging field of nanomedicine and appreciate present and future applications of nanotechnologies and nanomaterials in medicine and healthcare and their limitations.
F	Evaluate the scientific and regulatory obstacles to implementation of nanomedicines.

Method of teaching and learning

The teaching sessions divide into Lectures, Tutorials and Private Study.

Lectures will be used to introduce students to the concepts, theories and the applications covered by the module, supported by materials on LMO and other web-based resources. Handouts will be made available to students in classrooms and on LMO. Animations and/or videos will be shown for some of the topics. 

Tutorials will help students to deepen their understanding on the subjects of the module, which will run in ways mixed with group discussion, problem-solving, reviewing and reflection, Q&A, formative quiz, and feedback to coursework. The size of the group will vary with the learning objectives. The review sessions will be arranged towards end of the semester and the students will have opportunities to self-assess their understanding of the course.

Private Study is the unsupervised time students spend: 1) to digest and reflect the materials supplied by the instructor(s); 2) to do background reading and 3) to finish the coursework assignments.

Assessment facilitates evaluation of student learning and development, while the feedback helps deepening students’ understanding. Timely, relevant and specific, constructive and actionable feedback will be provided to students in class, on paper and/or in person for each assignment. 

The assessment has 3 components: coursework, report and final exam, covering different LOs. The coursework contains short answer questions and essay-type questions and is due in 2 weeks. The minimum length for the report is 3500 words and due in 3 weeks, while the final exam will contain short answer questions and essay-type questions, which will be a 3-hour close-book exam.