The article sets out to develop the concept of attention as a key aspect to building the possible therapeutics that Bernard Stiegler's recent works have pointed to (The Automatic Society, 2016, The "Neganthropocene", 2018 and "Qu'appelle-t-on" Panser, 2018). The therapeutic aspect of pharmacology takes place through processes…

Working memory (WM), the capacity for short-term storage of small quantities of information for immediate use, is thought to depend on activity within the prefrontal cortex. Recent evidence indicates that the prefrontal neuronal activity supporting WM is driven by thalamocortical connections arising in mediodorsal thalamus (mdThal). However, the…

Colleges and universities are learning to provide relevant virtual lab experiences for students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even schools attempting in-person instruction often need to utilize virtual experiences for students absent due to quarantine or illness. Much of biochemistry is amenable to molecular visualization and/or computational…

Medical students face challenging but important topics they must learn in short periods of time, such as autonomic pharmacology. Autonomic pharmacology is difficult in that it requires students to synthesize detailed anatomy, physiology, clinical reasoning, and pharmacology. The subject poses a challenge to learn as it is often introduced early in…

Digital transformation in education and relevant calls for action are recognised global priorities aimed to support education and training in the digital age. The experiences from the emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and recent research findings reveal relevant advantages, challenges, as well as different students and…

The Maryland Action for Drug Discovery and Pharmaceutical Research (MADDPR) Program provides hands-on lab experience and mentoring to underserved minority high school students. Over 4 years, 93 high school students and their science teachers participated in the two-week summer camp program which was led by 15 faculty from the School of Pharmacy.…

We present adaptable activities for models of drug movement in the human body -- pharmacokinetics -- that motivate the learning of ordinary differential equations with an interdisciplinary topic. Specifically, we model aspirin, caffeine, and digoxin. We discuss the pedagogy of guiding students to understand, develop, and analyze models,…

We describe a 2 h general-chemistry experiment that introduces college students not only to the concepts, synthesis, and applications of nanomaterials at an early stage but also the use of a spectrophotometer for quantification and unknown determination based on Beer's Law. The procedure involves students (1) preparing a nanocomposite by…

An experiment in teaching students to use the literature to devise and defend a plan for novel research is presented as part of a graduate-level course in heterocyclic chemistry. Students in three successive iterations of the course completed an assignment during which they were assigned novel heterocyclic cores that were selected by varying or…

Fear can potently inhibit ongoing behavior, including reward-seeking, yet the neural circuits that underlie such suppression remain to be clarified. Prior studies have demonstrated that distinct subregions of the rodent medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) differentially affect fear behavior, whereby fear expression is promoted by the more dorsal…

The Pre-College Summer Program at the University of Connecticut is designed to introduce upper-level high school students (rising juniors and seniors) to college life by allowing them to live on campus for a week while taking a college-level course. Within the context of this program, we developed a class designed to introduce high school students…

Fragment-based drug design (FBDD) is a promising methodology to find quality drug leads. It is important in the curriculum of a drug design course due to its impact on drug discovery. However, teaching FBDD and its use by students remain challenging in most cases. A web-based laboratory class to teach FBDD in the form of our copyrighted workshops…

Zinc oxide is a common additive in food, cosmetics, and medicines. Here, we describe the validation of methods to analyze two pharmaceutical samples containing ZnO--talc powder and dermal ointment--by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) titration. The methods developed were implemented as a practical class to students of a Quantitative Analysis…

Project-Enhanced learning is an excellent way to facilitate student-centered learning along with traditional lecture-based learning. In this Class and Home problem, an example of Project-Enhanced learning is provided that can be used in the Mass and Energy Balances (MEB) course. The students solve this problem as part of a group while receiving…

The European Open Platform for Prescribing Education (EurOP2E) seeks to improve and harmonize European clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education by facilitating international collaboration and sharing problem-based, online, open educational resources. The COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers to switch to virtual modalities, highlighting…