PHRM30009: Drugs in Biomedical Experiments

A 20% mid-semester test, 40% exam, 40% continued assessment of pracs

I'm reviewing this subject because the previous one is quite old and brief.

You don't need to have done any prior pharmacology to choose this subject, but it helps. Most students completing this subject are majoring in pharmacology or medicinal chemistry (since it is compulsory for them), but I included it as a part of a biochemistry/molecular biology major.

The best part of this subject is that there are no lectures, hence barely any content to "memorise". The workshops are just used for a bit of admin, to go through theory for the pracs (generally too detailed to actually be assessed but helps you understand what you are doing and why), or to go through the class results in detail (quite important).

All pracs are done in pairs or groups of three, and if you haven't done much pharmacology someone in your group will have so you can learn off each other. The pracs aren't very stressful compared to other prac subjects because you aren't really assessed on your performance in the prac. There are a few demonstrators that roam around the lab, beware that some of them are more helpful than others. If you stuff up a prac, it isn't a big deal because the assessment mainly uses class results and gives you room to suggest possible causes of errors, just ensure that you write what happened in your notebook.

The subject is broken into five distinct blocks/sets of experiments. The continued assessment of practicals that is worth 40% comprises:
----- A laboratory notebook entry each week (10%): I found this the worst part of assessment for the subject, not because it was particularly difficult, but rather the expectations were poorly outlined. I tended to get into a lot of detail at the beginning of semester but realised that it took too much time for what it was worth after a few weeks. This is assessed once at the end of semester, which I thought didn't really provide us with an opportunity to improve our entries throughout the semester. I would have preferred them to check it twice, once earlier on in the semester so that we could get feedback and fix our mistakes in later pracs. During the final prac class, a mark is put in your book to indicate where you are up to so you can keep it for revision purposes. I personally didn't use it much for exam revision, and would have preferred them to grade it so we could get our marks before the final exam.
----- Block 1 (about responses to capsaicin) was only assessed in the MST and exam: I think this block of pracs was just included to warm us up into prac work and help us practice our pipetting skills.
----- Block 2 (about drug effects and receptors) required some graphical analysis and answering a few questions (5%): The pracs for this block were just doing a bunch of organ bath experiments and making a lot a concentration response curves. Then, you get to spend two weeks designing your own experiment/hypothesis and then testing it (rather than follow a protocol in the lab manual) which is something I believe is unique to this prac subject. Again, I felt that they didn't provide us with clear expectations for the assessment of this block. I would have liked an assessment rubric, but I think they mark it by comparing your work to others in the cohort rather than looking for specific expected details in your answers. Anyway, you need to go into a lot of detail for the questions section to achieve a good mark. The average was 19/28, pretty low compared to assessments later on.
----- Block 3 (about toxicity of prednisolone) required you to analyse the class results (7.5%) and peer-assessment (2.5%): The single prac for this block involved a mouse dissection which was pretty fun. It was run by Rosa, who I reckon was one of the better lecturers who made an effort to integrate the five blocks. There is a bit of focus on immunology in this block, as you will be removing and analysing the spleen and thymus, and need to be able to in identify a few cell types using microscopy. The assignment for this block is marked by your peers, and the median mark they give ends up being your mark out of 7.5%, but you also get a free 2.5% on top of that for marking five of your peers.
----- Block 4 (about drug discovery and high-throughput screening) is assessed by a group assignment (7.5%): This block is run by Alastair Stewart, and you go through how a pharmaceutical company would go about finding new drugs. For the assessment, you are provided with around five Standard Operating Procedures that you need to mark as a group of 4-6. The mark you get is determined by how closely the marks your group gives correlates to the official marks for that SOP. There are also some general questions you need to do and a few calculations for the cost of a hypothetical high-throughput screen. The average was 82/100. There was also a molecular modelling prac in this block which was done entirely on the computers and run by Tony Hughes. You looked at X-ray crystallography structures for human beta-adrenoceptors, aquaporin and ubiquitin.
----- Block 5 (about beta-blockers and clinical trials) is assessed by a written abstract (7.5%): This prac was sort of like a mock (single-blind) clinical trial, in that you are given (if you are healthy and wanted to) either atenolol, pindolol or a placebo after taking baseline cardiovascular measurements, and you observe their effects. You use stationary exercise bikes, and measure parameters like heart rate, blood pressure, facial temperature and peak expiratory flow rate. I found this prac really fun. The abstract is restricted to 1 A4 page, and the average was 18/20.

There was a general consensus on my prac bench that the feedback was sub-par. You aren't clearly told why you lost marks for these assignments, but are just given a generic document about the overall performance of the class. Given that there were only 80 students, I think they definitely could have given slightly more individualised feedback, especially for the group assignment. For the MST, you are just given a mark and they don't go through common errors or the correct answers. It wasn't difficult and didn't require you to memorise any theory, but the average was 24/34 probably due to how different it was to the practice material they provided. The exam was in a similar format to the MST, but I found it a bit harder. There is no multiple choice on either MST or exam, it's mainly either calculations/match the graph to a statement or short answer questions where you explain a set of provided results. I liked that the concepts are more important than fine details that would be rote learned in other subjects.

The workshop slides aren't put up on the LMS, which I found really annoying. And the workshops run in the lab aren't recorded which was a shame since it was quite hard to get everything down if you zone out during the 4 hours. This doesn't end up being a big issue since you aren't assessed in that way in the exam. The laboratory manual provided wasn't very detailed (compared to other prac subjects). I think it would have been better if they included some specific background knowledge/theory rather than links to other resources/papers, but it's all explained in the workshop preceding the prac anyway.

Overall, the subject is definitely on the easier side with interesting content but the coordination/feedback could be improved.

Yes, with screen capture for the workshops in a lecture theatre only.

Michael Lew, Christine Keenan, Rosa McCarty, James Ziogas, Alastair Stewart, Tony Hughes, probably more

Two practice mid-semester tests with no solutions provided, one past exam with thoroughly worked solutions provided and a couple of practice questions with no solutions

3/5

A laboratory manual is provided for free, but you need to purchase a laboratory notebook for about $20.

There are two (1 hr) workshops and a practical (3 hrs) per week. The first workshop includes all students in the subject and is run in a theatre, whereas the second workshop precedes your particular practical class and is generally run in the lab.

2016, Semester 1

I scraped an H1

Continuing assessment of practicals during the semester (40%); Mid-semester assessment (20%); A 2-hour written examination in the examination period (40%).

The subject is a practical subject, available in semester one and two, and compulsory for the pharmacology (biomed or sci) major. Compared to some other practical subjects (from what I hear) it is pretty laid back (not assessed each week), but sometimes pracs can be up to 4 hours long. The midsemester and final exam in semester one felt harder than last year's ones which we had for practice. They can sometimes throw strange questions (non multiple choice) to do with hypothesis generation etc. That said, to do reasonably well in the exam doesn't really require that much hardcore knowledge.

Yes, with screen capture.

(not complete) Michael Lew, James Ziogas, Graham Mackay, Alastair Stewart, Peter McIntyre

Yes, one midsemester provided, one exam. (out of two previous semesters)

3 Out of 5

Course Manual (Provided) (no cost). No textbook prescribed or recommended, although pharmacology knowledge from theory subjects will help.

Contact Hours: one x 3 hour practicals per week plus two x 1 hour workshops per week (total contact hours: 60) Total Time Commitment: 120 hours

2011 Semester 1

(Optional) H1 (barely)