New Class Allows Students to Develop Alzheimer's-Fighting Drug

The University of Arizona (UA) is offering a new "From Chemistry to Cure" course in which pharmacy students will develop drugs to combat Alzheimer's, reports the Daily Wildcat . "The students have an Alzheimer's-causing protein target that they will pick during the course and will find compounds that virtually bind to this target," said UA Professor May Khanna, who will teach the class. "They will optimize these compounds with the help of chemists and pharmaceutical scientists and progress through the whole drug discovery path. At the end of the course, some students will progress to the second phase to create a startup company to further develop the compound." Following the drug discovery stage, the students will meet with Tech Launch Arizona, the university office that commercializes new inventions by UA researchers. Khanna said the selected students will pitch their ideas for a potential startup, with one group's compound chosen at the end of the course. That compound will be sent for testing to a contract research organization the following summer. Khanna emphasized the course's primary goal is to cultivate students' critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills.