Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia College of Pharmacy is developing a Drug Discovery Active Learning While Gaming (DDAWG) course series proposed earlier this year.

The College of Pharmacy was awarded an Online Course Innovation Grant, offered jointly by the UGA Office of Online Learning and the UGA Graduate School, to develop these courses. Faculty will be supported through a collaborative partnership with experts in UGA’s Office of Online Learning for quality instructional design, media creation, marketing, and online student services, with course launch targeted for fall 2018. UGA’s Online Innovation Grant provides $50,000 per award to fund the most innovative proposals for developing engaging online courses.

The College of Pharmacy will receive funding to develop three fully online, master’s level courses: Robotic Technology in Drug Discovery and Toxicology, Computation Approaches in Drug Discovery and Toxicology, and Pharmacokinetics in Drug Discovery and Toxicology. Taken individually, or as a set towards an emphasis in the College of Pharmacy’s Double Dawg program, these courses will teach students how to use liquid handling robotics, computational chemistry, and toxicology tools through gamification and an accelerated hands-on project environment.

“DDAWG Pharmaceuticals is a fictional start-up company that will be the basis for specific projects and applications of course material. Students will become virtual employees of DDAWG Pharmaceuticals, serving multiple key roles in the company’s new drug discovery campaign,” said  Scott D. Pegan, Associate Professor at the College of Pharmacy, who is one of the faculty leading efforts in this program, along with Assistant Professor Arthur Roberts, Associate Professor Cathy White, and Professor Brian Cummings.

The proposed course series will meet increasing labor demands while capitalizing on UGA’s strengths in experimental learning and pharmaceutical research. According to the Bureau of Labor, medical scientist employment is expected to grow by 13 percent, and medical and clinical laboratory technologists are expected to increase by 22 percent. With pharmaceutical companies on the rise, there is a clear opportunity for students who enroll in this course series.

“The course series will provide flexible, practical training for students, incorporating the latest technology in drug screening and toxicology research,” said Pegan.  “Student researchers who wish to carry out drug screening and toxicology studies in the screening lab as part of their thesis or dissertation research can also use these courses as opportunities for added training.”

For more information about DDAWG, please contact Dr. Scott Pegan (spegan@uga.edu).  For more information about the innovation grants, feel free to the Office of Online Learning by phone at 844-842-3294.