Brief History
Pharmaceutics, the science of dosage form design involves the process of turning a pharmacologically active chemical entity into a medication that will be safe and effective when used by patients. The Department also teaches Pharmaceutical Microbiology, which is the study of microorganisms associated with the manufacture of pharmaceutical products and and methods to ensure that pharmaceutical products do not contain potentially harmful organisms.
Courses Offered
The Department offers courses in Pharmaceutical dosage forms and drug delivery systems, microbiology, immunology, physical pharmacy, pharmaceutical technology, mathematics for pharmacy, and good manufacturing practices
Postgraduate Programmes
The M.Phil and PhD programmes of the department are currently being developed.
Research Areas
Research in the department is focused on drug development, drug targeting and quality assurance. The pharmaceutics laboratory is tasked with preparing micro and nano-particulate drug formulations using state of the art equipments. For nanosphere formulations, the use of high speed industrial blenders are employed, while microsphere drug formulations are prepared using a laboratory mini-spray dryer which is able to produce particles within 1 – 10 µm size range. The department is also equipped with a modern bench top lyophilyzer for preparation of most of its powder formulations.
A section of the pharmaceutical research laboratory is reserved for cell culture studies and is equipped with two CO2 incubators, two Class II Biological Safety Cabinets, an inverted microscope, a fluorescence microscope and a fluorescence microplate reader. This section of the laboratory focuses mainly on intracellular drug targeting studies.
The department also routinely performs drug quality studies using its disintegration and dissolution equipments. The department has established research links with the Noguchi Memorial Institute, CePAT and FDA. Presently, there is research collaboration between the department and other departments of the school of Pharmacy namely, the Departments of Pharmacology and Pharmacy Practice.