King’s College London: “From Molecules to Medicines”

King’s College London has a strong tradition in pharmaceutical science, world-class pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, and therapeutics. This has led to the creation of a number of spin-out companies, including MedPharm and Proximagen Neuroscience plc.

The School of Cancer and Pharmaceutical Science was created to bring together the relevant research groupings across King’s College London.

Molecules to Medicine’s strategy is designed to capture and highlight the broad sweep of research at King’s ranging from pharmacological and chemical studies that can identify novel drug targets and new chemical entities, through formulation and drug development, to clinical trials and the use of medicines by patients. The all-embracing strategy is for researchers to work together towards the discovery of novel medicines and new formulations that can be evaluated in patients in the clinic.

To achieve this goal, and to provide focus, research activities are organized into three related themes: Drug Discovery, Medicines Development, and Medicines Use. Each of these themes includes clusters of research activity, some of which have evolved during the past decade (e.g. drug delivery, chemical biology, pharmaceutical biophysics, pharmacology), and some of which have joined King’s more recently such as enhanced activity in anticancer and anti-infective drug discovery, nanomedicines, substance abuse, health psychology, and clinical pharmacy. Researchers within and across the three themes interact both informally and via joint initiatives to promote cross-disciplinary research. For example, the drug delivery activities of Forbes, Jones, and Daily, working closely with colleagues in pharmacology (Page/Spina) have led to consortium funding and several Ph.D. studentships from the MRC to investigate the safety of nanoparticles in the airways.

This excerpt was originally published on the King’s College website at https://www.kcl.ac.uk/lsm/research/divisions/ips/about/index.aspx

The IFAPP Academy in partnership with King’s College London offers Academic and Professional Certification for students successfully completing the Medical Affairs in Medicines Development course. To learn about the benefits of Certification from the IFAPP Academy, visit us at https://ifappacademy.org/index.php/ifapp-academy-benefits/

Professor Peter Stonier, Co-director of the Medical Affairs Certification program says: