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EDUCATION

The Pharmaceutical Education Project

Trains graduate and undergraduate students to bring a new perspective to the pharmaceutical industry. To supplement direct faculty mentorship in the laboratory, students can take a number of pharmaceutically oriented courses, including our capstone course on Drug Design, Development and Delivery and the week-long Pharmaceutical Industry Plant Trip (see below) over spring break, both of which are unique opportunities that cannot be found at other universities. We support our students through a Doctoral Fellowship Program funded in part by a U.S. Department of Education training grant.

Pharmaceutical Industry Plant Trip

While most students finished finals and quickly packed their bags headed for the beach or the mountains, a group of students from Georgia Tech embarked upon a spring break adventure that proved just as rewarding as it was unique. Instead of relaxing on the sand or hiking a steep trail, seven ChBE students, along with 16 other students from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, toured leading pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in Puerto Rico, one of the top countries in the world for pharmaceutical manufacturing. The educational trip was supplemented by opportunities for sight-seeing and recreation and the students returned eagerly sharing memories of both the plant tours and the free-time they enjoyed on the island.

Accompanied by Mark Prausnitz, PhD and Andy Bommarius PhD, professors of chemical and biomolecular engineering and directors of GT's Center for Drug Design, Development, and Delivery (CD4), the group visited manufacturing facilities for pharmaceutical giants such as Amgen, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, and Wyeth, to take an up-front look at how drugs are made at state-of-the-art facilities.

The trip was part of the class, Drug Design, Development, and Delivery, which is taught by the two professors and was supported by GT's College of Engineering and College of Sciences, as well as the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Schools of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Chemistry and Biochemistry. The professors chose Puerto Rico because it is one of the largest sites of pharmaceutical manufactures in the world with one-fourth of its gross domestic product derived from the industry. They believe introducing the broad scope of the pharmaceutical industry in the classroom, learning and applying the science that supports the industry in GT labs, and then providing students the opportunity to observe applications of engineering and problem solving first-hand at the Puerto Rican plants provide a truly comprehensive overview.

"As a component of the pharmaceutical training program at GT, this plant trip gave students a first-hand understanding of the complex processes needed to make drugs and the innovative solutions the pharmaceutical industry has developed," said Dr. Prausnitz.

As the first university group from the main-land United States to visit most of these facilities, the GT participants were greeted by top management and escorted by the plant designers and operators manufacturing insulin, birth control pills and patches, antibiotics, antidepressants, and cholesterol-reducing drugs.

"They were able to learn the nuts and bolts of pharmaceutical manufacturing but also absorb cultural nuances about how to work with designers and plant workers in an increasingly international industry" Dr. Bommarius said.

The trip proved to be a great success in providing students with a unique perspective on the pharmaceutical industry that cannot be experienced in the classroom. Drs. Prausnitz and Bommarius plan to return next spring with a new group so that they too may have an unprecedented edge in their overall educational background.