National Pharmacy Teachers Training Programme commences at PU

Chandigarh: A one-week web faculty training school under the initiative of UGC Networking Resource Centre (UGC-NRC), on “Tools Enabling Drug Discovery and Drug Analysis in Pharmaceutical Research” from 22 March to 27 March 2021 was inaugurated today in online mode at the University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Panjab University Campus, for pharma faculty and researchers across the country by Professor Tapas K Kundu, Director CSIR – Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Professor Tapas K Kundu delivered the Key Note Address on “COVID – Treatment and Vaccine.” Prof Kundu gave an overview of the different genomic structures responsible for the mutation & the second peak being encountered presently. He also discussed the challenges and opportunities in new drug discovery process and highlighted the potential of drug repurposing in COVID 19 management. He sensitized the audience and encouraged everyone to get vaccinated while continuing with mask and social distancing. 

Professor V. R. Sinha, Dean of University Instruction, Panjab University, in his address described about the applications and scope of contemporary drug discovery tools in pharmaceutical research. 

Professor Indu Pal Kaur, Chairperson, UIPS and Programme Coordinator, UGC-NRC welcomed the participants and briefed them about the achievements of UIPS and UGC-NRC programs. Professor Renu Chadha, Course Coordinator, summarized about the course content to the participants and Dr Neelima Dhingra, Joint Course Coordinator conducted the proceedings of the event.

Subsequent sessions included a lecture by Professor Gulshan Kumar Bansal, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Research, Punjabi University, Patiala on “LC-MS: A powerful tool in drug discovery and development.” The post-lunch session covered informative talks by Professor Purnananda Guptasarma, Department of Biological Sciences, IISER, Mohali on “Analysis of the identity, purity, conformation and function of therapeutic proteins” and Leveraging In silico Approaches in Drug discovery process by Dr Neelima Dhingra, Assistant Professor UIPS, Panjab University, Chandigarh  

A total of 35 participants were selected for training, hailing from various Colleges/Universities, representing 13 different states of India. The training school intends to apprise the young participants/researchers/ teachers about the synthetic and analytical techniques adopted in the drug discovery and drug analysis process; leading computational tools and their use in drug design and development process and incorporating these tools in research projects.

UIPS is the first and the only Pharmacy Institute in the country selected by MHRD for creating UGC Networking Resource Centre to promote and foster research and academics in the field of Pharmaceutical Sciences by training young pharma trainers, selected across the nation.