National Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics at PGI

By 121 News Reporter

Chandigarh 21^st February:- The Department of Pharmacology, PGI, Chandigarh is organizing the 34^th Annual National Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics from 23^th to 28^th March 2015. It is one of the most successful and longest running educational program in this institute and also in this country for capacity building in clinical research. Started in 1982, The aim of this workshop is to train and educate doctors, scientists and pharmaceutical personnel in the field of new drug development and clinical research. This workshop gives the delegates an unique environ where they get to meet eminent personnel from academic institutions and pharmaceutical industry invited from all over the country and get a glimpse of their future in both the ends of spectrum of career options in Pharmacology.

Dr Bikash Medhi, the organising secretary told that this year the workshop is being attended by around 65 participants. These include faculty and postgraduate students from the academic institutions and clinical research personnel from the pharmaceutical industry from all over India.Padma Shree Prof Y.K. Chawla (Director, PGIMER) will be inaugurating the workshop.

Eminent speakers from the academia include Prof P.L.Sharma;Prof YK Gupta; Dr Dinesh from NIN; Dr Anand Sharma from NIPER; Dr Anil Gulati from Midwestern University, USA; Dr Dinesh Badyal from CMC Ludhiana; Dr RM Pandey from AIIMS, Delhiand the faculty staff from various departments of PGIMER. The speakers from Governmental research funding organisations include Prof Nilima Kshirsagar & Dr Mukesh Kumar from ICMR, Ms Ekta Kapoor from DST, Dr Kalaiselvan & Dr Jai Prakash from Indian Pharmacopeia Commission and Mr AK Pradhan from DCGI office.The speakers from the pharmaceutical industry include Dr Vivek Ahuja, Director of PATH, Dr. Amey Mane from Janssen; Dr Sharad Sharma from Lupin; Dr Nilanjan Saha from Ranbaxy; Dr RH Jani and Dr Rajan Mittal from Reddy's Lab to name a few.

The topics to be discussed in the workshop include the current issues and problems related to new drug development process and the regulatory guidelines, the recent regulatory amendments for conducting clinical trials, clinical trials in specialized areas, pharmacogenetics, therapeutic drug monitoring and clinical trials monitoring, ethics in clinical research, fraud and misconduct and economics of health research, how to apply for patent and many more. The discussions will emphasis on motivating the future pharmacologist and research personnel on how to do research in a resource limited setting, the quality control measures to be taken to get dependable results from such research and enlighten them about the current scenario of clinical research in India and the experts' opinion on how to carry India forward in the field of clinical research. The delegates will get hands on training in various aspects of Clinical Pharmacology by means of nested workshops and hands on training on evidence based medicine, clinical pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. The delegates will also get the opportunity to visit the Regional Drug Testing Laboratory in Chandigarh.

Dr Bikash Medhi, organising secretary, also told us that the whole department has been working hard for this workshop and arrangements for a warm welcoming of delegates and the speakers have been made