About This Course

       Computer-Aided Drug Design (CADD) is a new technology developed in the past 30 years and has gradually become an independent branch of pharmacy. Base on Mathematics, Medicinal Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Structural Chemistry, Quantum chemistry, and molecular mechanics, CADD use computer numerical calculation and logical judgment, database, graphics, artificial intelligence to carry out rational drug design.

      CADD plays a crucial role in the early treatment and control in the face of Covid-19 epidemic. Although the three-dimensional structure of coronavirus is completely unknown, researchers could simulate its three-dimensional structure using the homologous modeling function of CADD. Then several effective drugs like Chloroquine were found using virtual screening.

      This course is an online MOOC for CADD created by School of Pharmacy, Jinan University. Both theoretical methodology and software practice would be emphasized. It also incorporates the practical experience and real cases of CADD teaching in our college. The course is divided into four chapters. Chapter one: Introduce the background of CADD; Chapter two: Introduce the basic concept of drug design, such as the relationship between drug action and its structure, the knowledge of receptor and ligand, the method of drug discovery, etc; Chapter three: Explain the basic operation of drug design software SYBYL and four modules of CADD, Quantitative structure-activity relationship, molecular docking, pharmacophore model and homologous modeling; Chapter four: Based on the CADD teaching practice experience of more than 10 years in School of Pharmacy, Jinan University, this course will start from four research cases. It will explain the research ideas of the cases, and replay the CADD research method. Furthermore, it will guide students to learn the basic operation and the four modules operation to improve the CADD skills of learners.

Requirements

 1.Biochemistry 2.Medicinal Chemistry

Course Staff

Pinghua Sun, Professor,  Jinan University, received his Master's degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in 2002, and received his M.D. degree from Jinan University in 2010, and did his post-doctoral research at the University of South Florida/Moffitt Cancer Institute, USA, from 2003 to 2004. He was awarded the Second Prize of National Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award and the First Prize of Guangdong Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award. He is the leader of Guangdong Pharmacy Teaching Team and the leader of Guangdong Resource Sharing Programme. He has undertaken more than 10 provincial, ministerial and university-level teaching reform projects and published 25 papers on teaching reform. His academic expertise is in innovative drug design and research, and he has published more than 100 scientific research papers. He has applied for 23 Chinese invention patents (14 have been granted), and in the past six years, he has undertaken 3 National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) top-level funds and a number of provincial and ministerial projects, and was awarded the Second Prize of Guangdong Provincial Award for Scientific and Technological Progress.

Ke Ding, Professor of Jinan University, Dean of the School of Pharmacy, received his Bachelor's Degree in Chemical Pharmaceutics from China Pharmaceutical University (CPU) in 1995, Master's Degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from CPU in 1998, Doctoral Degree from Fudan University in 2001, and Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan (U.S.A.) from 2001 to 2005. He is a "Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor" of the Ministry of Education, a "Young and Middle-aged Science and Technology Innovation Leader" of the Ministry of Science and Technology, and a recipient of the National Distinguished Young Persons' Fund; his academic field focuses on the design and synthesis of "drug-forming" drugs, which have both biological activity and drug-forming properties, with emphasis on the clinical needs of oncology and metabolic diseases. His academic field focuses on the design and synthesis of lead compounds with both biological activity and efficacy, laying the foundation for innovative drug research. In recent years, he has successfully designed and synthesised a number of new drugs and candidates in the fields of anti-metabolic diseases and anti-tumour.

Yuqiang Wang , Director of the Institute of New Drugs, Jinan University, PhD supervisor, National "Thousand Talents Programme" expert, graduated from Shandong Normal University in 1981, majoring in Chemistry, and received his PhD from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1987. He received his PhD degree from University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1987, and then entered Yale University School of Medicine and University of Alberta for postdoctoral research. In the early 1990s, he joined a biopharmaceutical company in Silicon Valley, California, USA, to engage in drug research and development. 2005, he became a professor and the dean of the School of Pharmacy at Jinan University. His research interests include the evaluation of chemical structure modification, biological activity and mechanism of action of active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. He is conducting research and development of innovative drugs for the treatment of stroke, Parkinson's disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Xiaoyun Lu is a researcher at the School of Pharmacy, Jinan University, a recipient of Guangdong Outstanding Youth Fund, 863 Young Scientist Project, Guangdong Special Support Programme Young Top Talent. She is engaged in the discovery of innovative drug lead compounds. She is mainly focusing on the clinical resistance problem of lung diseases (lung cancer and tuberculosis), designing and synthesising lead compounds with important biological functions and good drug-forming properties, laying the foundation for innovative drug development.

Jun Xu, Deputy Director of Experimental Centre, School of Pharmacy, Jinan University, Senior Laboratory Technician, is engaged in drug molecular design, pharmacoinformatics, pharmacokinetics and other aspects of the research work, and has been participating in the "computer-aided drug design" and "medicinal chemistry experiments" and other courses, with a wealth of drug research and development experience and "computer-aided drug design" course teaching experience. In the teaching practice of Computer-Aided Drug Design, she has tried to introduce a variety of online teaching tools into the teaching of the course, and has gained good classroom results.

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