Pharmaceutical Sciences

Dr. Omar Z. Ameer, Assistant Professor

General Department Information

Welcome to the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Alfaisal University. The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences is the first department established within the College of Pharmacy of Alfaisal University. From the beginning, the department has been a major developing cornerstone for the Pharm D program within not only the college but the whole university. Collective efforts by the college dean and head of the department, together with our high-ranking faculty were behind its success, continuous support, and scientific achievements. The department has grown over the years to recruit an elite group of academics and scientific achievers, who are on a mission to educate future generations of leaders within the field of pharmacy. Although relatively small in numbers, the faculty of the department have made an astounding number of accomplishments and have won many awards within and from outside the university. One of the department’s main goals is to educate and train pharmacy student in subjects focusing on the design, action mechanism, and disposition of drugs, all of which are key elements to understanding the therapeutic effects of various medications. The task also necessitates the establishment of basic knowledge in different disciplines including calculus, general chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry, molecular medicine, as well as biomedical topics such as anatomy, histology, physiology, microbiology, and immunology. These essential subjects help build a solid foundation in our students that would help them progress further upon transitioning to pharmacy-specific subjects and other specialty topics including:

• Medicinal chemistry: via which the students would study the chemical entities of drug molecules and their structure activity relationship. All drug groups acting on different body systems are to be classified chemically, and covered along with their site of action, and biological system interaction. Hence, this subject would introduce the students to medicinal drugs and their pharmacology and clinical use.
• Pharmaceutics: through which the student would acquire the knowledge about different drug formulations that are designed to optimize drug delivery, stability, pharmacokinetics, and patient tolerability. Such knowledge is enabled via delivery of two courses: dosage form and stability, and drug delivery.
• Pharmacokinetics: this subject describes how the body affects a specific drug/chemical compound after administration into the human body. Mechanisms of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion from the body are covered in detail.
• Pharmacology: this course describes how various medications work on the human body, emphasizing on the biochemical and physiological effects of drugs on different body systems. It also covers the molecular and cellular mechanisms of drugs, and their medical application. The approach used to teach pharmacology is clinically based, where “integrated pharmacotherapy courses” would cover every body system separately. Such integration involves, pathophysiology, pharmacology, and therapeutics.
• Apart from these core courses, the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences also organizes and delivers other courses that help our students acquire basic skills in research such as biostatistics and basic research methods, as well as good laboratory practice.