This course is designed for graduate students working on their thesis. It gives them the opportunity to enhance their writing abilities and develop their critical Thinking. It attempts to help students achieve greater competency in reading, writing, reflection, and discussion emphasizing the responsibilities of written inquiry and structured reasoning. Students are expected to investigate questions that are at issue for themselves and their audience and for which they don’t already have answers. In other words, this course should help students write about what they have learned through their research rather than simply write an argument supporting one side of an issue or another.

Ecotoxicology is a relatively new science, whose main objective is to analyze the mechanism responsible for the dysfunction of ecological systems. This course covers the fundamentals of ecotoxicology (toxicokinetic and toxicodynamic regulation) to introduce the students to a risk assessment approach. The different ecotoxicological fundamental principles are illustrated by numerous examples of common contaminants such as heavy metals, PAHs, organochlorine pesticides, etc. and emerging pollutants such as endocrine disruptors and nanoparticles. This course educates and informs students about the health risks associated with exposure to substances in industrial environments, in food and in the general environment. The knowledge gained will make them alert to and ready to declare any disruption to their health industry leaders and hygienists.

The objective of the course is to introduce students to scientific research. Topics to be covered are: interest and research objectives; methodologies used in scientific research; how to define a problem; data collection; documentary research; analysis of the collected knowledge; structure of a Master thesis; writing a report; writing the bibliography; making a scientific poster; and how to approach giving an oral presentation.

The purpose of this course is to strengthen the knowledge of students in the field of applied statistics by minimizing the mathematical approach and developing practical and methodological aspects. It presents the main techniques of most known statistical tests (descriptive and inferential statistics, explanatory methods, and data analysis). The course provides an overview and practical main methods available in software, with an aid to the interpretation of the results and through fully processed examples using the statistical software SPSS. Most of the themes will be covered by this course including the analysis of Variance (ANOVA test), comparisons of samples (t­test and Chi-square), single and multiple regression.

This course is dedicated to quality and control. It looks at how to implement quality control practices and which criteria are involved in quality control. To understand all dimensions of quality control, the fields of drugs, food and the environment are discussed. The focus on these areas is explained by the improvement requirements for continuous quality.

The main goal of this course is to highlight our emerging understanding of the mechanisms of transduction of information from outside cells to an appropriate response. This is a 3 credit course that focuses on inter­ and intracellular communication, from the generation of signaling molecules through to the cellular responses. It teaches concepts central to understanding cellular signaling mechanisms and it covers the major signaling pathways and several emerging pathways. This course also uses the primary literature to develop a systems­level understanding of the information flow through the various cell signaling pathways and networks. Current areas of research activities in the experimental and theoretical understanding of cell signaling research are emphasized.

The course is designed to introduce pharmacology and toxicology Master’s students to fundamentals of clinical trials and legislation. The first part of this course includes general principles and issues in clinical research design. These are explored through the formulation of the research objective and the research hypothesis and the specification of the study population, the experimental unit, and the response variable(s). The second part of this course will focus on the Lebanese laws and decrees ruling the conditions of registering, importing, marketing and classifying imported or locally manufactured drugs.

Pharmacology is defined as the detailed study of drugs; accordingly teaching pharmacology aims predominantly at communicating to students all the information related to the source, development, physical and chemical properties, biochemical and physiological effects, pharmacodynamics (mechanism of action), pharmacokinetics (absorption, distribution, biotransformation and excretion), therapeutic and other uses of drugs. The main objectives of the course are: to inform students about the various research methods and techniques that are being used in the process of drug discovery and development, while helping them acquire the necessary knowledge concerning the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profiles of drugs; to help students acquire a correct pharmacological reasoning that will allow them to assess accurately the impact of drugs on a living organism, through the evaluation of possible side effects, accurate prescription of drugs and the necessary precautions needed with certain individuals or populations that are at high risk of developing adverse drug reactions.

Students must complete a 6 credits research project applied to their major. They are expected to realize a research work in the laboratory, submit a written report and give an oral presentation.

Pharmaceutics is the discipline of pharmacy that deals with the process of turning a new chemical entity (NCE) into a medication to be used safely and effectively by patients. There are many chemicals with pharmacological properties, but need special measures to help them achieve therapeutically relevant amounts at their sites of action. Pharmaceutics also help relate the formulation of drugs to their delivery and disposition in the body. This course aims at introducing students to the various pharmaceutical technologies applied in the preparation of pharmaceutical dosage forms and drug delivery systems. Moreover, the lectures presented demonstrate the correlation between pharmaceutical principles, drug design, formulation, manufacture, and compounding in addition to the techniques applied in each of the stated phases of drug development.

Topics selected from recent literature on biochemistry are studied in depth. A combination of workshops, announced seminars and announced conferences will be given covering assigned material. For the literature club, students will be responsible for submiting several one­page summaries of articles from the current scientific literature. Summaries will be graded on relevance, critical analysis and presentation. Submissions will be made available via eLearning and may become part of the material covered by quiz/exam questions.

Topics selected from recent literature on biochemistry are studied in depth. A combination of workshops, announced seminars and announced conferences will be given covering assigned material. For the literature club, students will be responsible to submit several one­page summaries of articles from the current scientific literature. Summaries will be graded on relevance, critical analysis and presentation. Submissions will be made available via eLearning and may become part of the material covered by quiz/exam questions.

This course studies drugs affecting major organ systems. In each topic, the physiopathology of the disease, the mechanism of action, the pharmacokinetic properties, the pharmacologic and side effects of the pharmacological treatment are detailed to better understand the clinical use, the benefits and the toxicity of drugs.

The topic of the Master’s thesis will be studied in depth. A combination of workshops, announced seminars and announced conferences will be given covering assigned material. Summaries will be graded on relevance, critical analysis and presentation. Submissions will be made available via eLearning and may become part of the material covered by quiz/exam questions.