This course explores the social relevance of neuroscience, considering how emerging areas of brain research at once reflect and reshape social attitudes and agendas. Topics include brain imaging and popular media; neuroscience of empathy, trust, and moral reasoning; new fields of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing; ethical implications of neurotechnologies such as cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals; neuroscience in the courtroom; and neuroscientific recasting of social problems such as addiction and violence. Guest lectures by neuroscientists, class discussion, and weekly readings in neuroscience, popular media, and science studies.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Horizontal gene transfer helps shape bacterial communities and drives the spread of antibiotic resistance. Of the three horizontal gene transfer pathways, conjugation has been studied the most in the context of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics themselves can trigger these transfers, but the impact of other types of pharmaceuticals in natural environments remains to be explored. To close this gap, researchers examined several common non-antibiotic pharmaceuticals in a model of wastewater treatment plant activated sludge. The tested compounds covered multiple drug classes including an anticonvulsant, a lipid-lowering drug, a β-blocker, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Environmentally relevant concentrations of the compounds promoted conjugative transfer of IncP1-α, a plasmid that carries antibiotic resistance. Exposure to these compounds spread IncP1-α across entire microbial communities..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Explore the discovery and understanding of marine symbionts that may provide novel sources of new drugs with Scripps Institutions' Margo Haygood. (27 minutes)

Join Scripps' Bill Gerwick in an exploration of the potential uses of one of the most ancient of all life forms - blue-green algae - as a source for new pharmaceuticals with used ranging from anticancer compounds to drug screening. (54 minutes)

This course serves as a description and critical assessment of the major issues and stages of developing a pharmaceutical or biopharmaceutical. Topics covered include drug discovery, preclinical development, clinical investigation, manufacturing and regulatory issues considered for small and large molecules, and economic and financial considerations of the drug development process. A multidisciplinary perspective is provided by the faculty, who represent clinical, life, and management sciences. Various industry guests also participate.

Students experience the steps of the engineering design process as they design solutions for a real-world problem that could affect their health. After a quick review of the treatment processes that municipal water goes through before it comes from the tap, they learn about the still-present measurable contamination of drinking water due to anthropogenic (human-made) chemicals. Substances such as prescription medication, pesticides and hormones are detected in the drinking water supplies of American and European metropolitan cities. Using chlorine as a proxy for estrogen and other drugs found in water, student groups design and test prototype devices that remove the contamination as efficiently and effectively as possible. They use plastic tubing and assorted materials such as activated carbon, cotton balls, felt and cloth to create filters with the capability to regulate water flow to optimize the cleaning effect. They use water quality test strips to assess their success and redesign for improvement. They conclude by writing comprehensive summary design reports.

This learning tool will guide students through the process of understanding real-world applications of drug delivery and how drug delivery is applied to treating infectious diseases. Students using this module should find success in self-directed learning, though they may use additional resources in the community, the guidance of teachers, the advice of scientists or biomedical professionals at DDF, or the knowledge presented in scientific literature to help them achieve their goal; though this module should provide most of the tools they will need for guidance.

Students experience the engineering design process as they design, fabricate, test and redesign their own methods for encapsulation of a (hypothetical) new miracle drug. As if they are engineers, teams make large-size prototypes to test proof of concept. They use household materials (tape, paper towels, plastic wrap, weed-barrier fabric, glues, etc.) to attach a coating to a porous "shell" (a perforated plastic Wiffle® ball) containing the medicine (colored drink mix powder). The objective is to delay the drug release by a certain time and have a long release duration—patterned after the timed release requirements of many real-world pharmaceuticals that are released from a polymer shell via diffusion in the body. Guided by a worksheet, teams go through at least three design/test iterations, aiming to achieve a solution close to the target time release constraints.