The majority of biologic and small molecule drugs perturb protein targets to exert their effects. With the recent explosion in the availability of large-scale genetic association data, it is increasingly feasible to identify genetic variants that proxy the effect of perturbing a protein drug target. Leveraging such genetic data thus offers an efficient and cost-effective approach for identifying drug targets and studying their effects.

This short course “Genetics in drug development” will provide theoretical and practical advice on using genetic data to:
1.    Identify drug targets
2.    Investigate the effects of drug target perturbation for different indications
3.    Explore potential adverse effects and repurposing potential for drug targets
4.    Identify biomarkers to explore drug efficacy in early stage clinical trials
5.    Identify population subgroups for which drug effects may vary
6.    Explore interactions between different drugs and exposures

University of Cambridge Students and Staff, whose department will be covering the participation cost, please raise a Purchase Order (or contact a member of your department who can assist with this) and send a PDF of the Purchase Order to burgess-group-admin@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk .  You will then be sent the passcode which you will need to use along with the Purchase Order number to complete registration below, selecting the 'UoC Student/Staff Registration' option. 

Statistical Considerations

Recent high-profile clinical trials have used an adaptive experimental design as the way to implement more efficient experiments, speed up time to conclusions and/or to improve on ethical considerations of the resulting experiment. Consequently, there is growing interest amongst clinical researchers and the clinical trials community in the use of these methods for conducting either early or late phase trials that more efficiently or more accurately balance competing goals, while gathering sufficient and robust evidence to reach a convincing conclusion.

Adaptive designs allow a variety of mid-trial modifications to be made to the trial so that the accumulating data guides investigators to the most appropriate form of evaluation (e.g. they can be used for arm selection, arm dropping, or simply to assign more patients on average to a superior treatment where possible). While offering great flexibility during the trial, they require specialised approaches for both the trial design and analysis.

For more information about the workshop, including the speakers, please go to 'More Info' tab.

Note for staff and students from the University of Cambridge:

University of Cambridge Students and Staff, whose department will be covering the participation cost, please raise a Purchase Order (or contact a member of your department who can assist with this) and send a PDF of the Purchase Order to courseadmin@mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk. You will then be sent the passcode which you will need to use along with the Purchase Order number to complete registration below, selecting the 'UoC Student/Staff Registration' option.