Viabilities of the third round of the “Pharmaceutical Engineering” course in the German university Berlin held over the period of three weeks (31July-21 August/2018) were concluded successfully under the supervision of Dr. Tarek Hashem and Lecturer Assistant Dina Abou Shady. The course aims to offer an unparalleled value for pharmacy students to learn the industrial standards for design, construction, and operation of the pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. The course exposes pharmacy students to the drug manufacturing industrial unit operations and unit processes from a combined Pharmacist-Engineer point of view. Hence, bridging the gap and facilitating student’s communication skills in real-life-industrial-situations to find solutions for their needs and to connect them with other professionals to share-best-practices.
Three rounds of the course; 2016, 2017 and 2018, under the auspices of the GUC have proven the creditability of GUC students to compete in different academic fields and to easily bounce from the laboratory scale to the mass production scale.
In 2018, academic visits to two superior German affiliations: 1) Humboldt Universität and 2) Frei Universität were organized as a part of the Study Units related to the course. These visits were held to introduce students to broad pharmaceutical research scenarios and to expose them to experiential learning by attending different lectures. The latter was given by Prof. M. Linscheid and Prof. Maria Parr and their research group members. Students were then oriented to various research laboratories to see and to learn more about pharmaceutical equipment and instrumental techniques that take place under bench scale conditions. Also, students had the chance to interact with German professors and young researchers during their lectures and posters discussions.
In believing in giving the chance to GUC researchers for academic exchange, Dina Abou Shady, Lecturer Assistant in pharmaceutical chemistry department and co-instructor in Berlin pharmaceutical engineering course gave a lecture in Frei Universität presenting the GUC history, faculties and illustrated the departments and in particular the research facilities in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry in the Faculty of Pharmacy. This has left an impressive impact on all German researchers as well as on the students.
Thanks to Prof. M. Linscheid and to Prof. Maria Parr and their research groups for their tedious effort and their care behind the success of both visits. Thanks as well to all the students who attended the course.