Teaching
This innovative and highly multi-disciplinary course has been co-developed and co-delivered with industry partners and puts the students in an advantageous position whereby they will be taught by world-leading academics and industry experts in the field of therapeutic sciences. The taught elements of the course will consist of extensive core teaching in the following areas:
- Healthcare Challenges in the 21st Century and Future Shaping Factors
- Drug Discovery, Design, Production, Safety and Characterisation
- New Modalities and Advanced Therapeutics
- Clinical studies
- Diagnostics and Convergence Technologies
- Regulatory, Legal, Communication and Policy Issues
- Business, Entrepreneurial and Leadership Training
All students on this programme will be members of the University’s Postgraduate School of Life Sciences (PSLS) who offer a wide variety of core skills and professional development training. Visit the Researcher Development page on the PSLS website for more information.
| One to one supervision |
In the first term, supervisors for students will be allocated from the following people: Course Director Academic Course Coordinator Module Lead They will be available for supervisions (one per term) if requested by a student. In the second and third term, supervision will be provided by the student's research project supervisors, with oversight maintained by the Course Director/Academic Course Coordinator/academic supervisors. Supervisions for the project are one-on-one with at least three hours of contact time. |
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| Seminars & classes |
All aspects of this Master's are compulsory. Throughout the course, lectures and seminars will be widely used to deliver information in an interactive fashion. Students may, at times share lectures with other Masters courses. Teaching will be delivered by academic staff and guest lecturers from industry. Some of the teaching will be delivered with a seminar-style approach in order to promote open discussion around specific topics or theories. There are a large number of weekly and monthly seminar series across the University in many areas of therapeutic sciences and students will be strongly encouraged to attend as many as possible. Students will, overall, be expected to take responsibility for their own learning and will need to manage their time effectively to fit this around the academic timetable and any other activities that they may become involved in. There are also a number of workshops which will be delivered by academic and industry tutors which will require students to work individually or in groups, in their own time, based around information garnered in their lectures and seminars. Students will be encouraged to discuss topics and theories that they have read in class or independently weighing its merits or considering their legal/regulatory or ethical implications in the real-life setting in therapeutic sciences. Discussions will be an important part of the overall Master's experience, giving students not only access to other wide-ranging viewpoints on the same subject matter, but also enabling them to consider the different rationales and to become familiar with psychology and logic, important elements in the industrial setting. |
| Lectures |
Lectures, including workshops and interactive sessions, form a significant portion of teaching on this course and will consist of at least 100 hours per teaching term. All teaching elements are compulsory. |
| Practicals |
Interactive learning: Learning by doing will be an important part of this course. Interactive workshop sessions aim to give students supplemental information to back up the materials presented in lectures. Students will normally work in small teams and present their findings orally. Industry contact: A number of high profile therapeutics companies in close proximity to Cambridge may invite students from this course to their sites or come to the University to demonstrate the practical application of the information they will teach and run through real-life problem-based and enquiry-based workshops. Here, groups of students will be presented with a real-life problem or scenario and will need to work as a team to investigate potential solutions while identifying what skills or knowledge are needed to effectively manage the situation. Site visits to different companies, either in Cambridge or surroundings may be scheduled in the first term. These may involve trips that can last from a few hours to a full day. |
| Journal clubs |
There will be 12 journal clubs held during the course. |
| Literature Reviews |
A literature review will take place as part of the student's research project. |
| Posters and Presentations |
During the annual research symposium, students will give presentations and/or poster talks based on their research project. Students may also be required to deliver individual or group presentations during the year as part of the practical element of the course and group-work activities. |
| Taught/Research Balance |
Predominantly Taught
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Placements
Student placements during the course will take place from approximately January to June each year. During the research project phase of the course, each student will have two supervisors (one from the company/academic department and the other the Academic Course Coordinator) to ensure that they receive all necessary support. Placements will be carried out in either the home, academic or industry setting as each project dictates, based on aspects such as the equipment required, access to relevant data and supervisory team expertise. Please note all students will return to campus for one day per week during the project placement.
Feedback
During the first term, the supervisor will meet with students and provide feedback where required. As the first term consist mainly of lectures and seminars attendance will be monitored as well as engagement with workshops and group activities. Students can also expect to receive termly formal feedback reports via the online feedback and reporting system.
On completion of the written assessments, students will be advised of their provisional results and feedback will be provided.
Students will meet with their project supervisors to discuss progress throughout the second and third term. Feedback is also provided to students when writing up their project work.
Assessment
Thesis / Dissertation
A heavily-weighted dissertation not exceeding 10,000 words (excluding bibliography) will constitute 70% of the final mark. Your dissertation will be based on research conducted during a University or Industrial placement.
The placement and the project chosen by the student will involve research in fundamental science, or a more industry-oriented topic. It will be conducted at the premises of a participating company or in a University laboratory. Each student will have two supervisors (one from the Company/Academic laboratory and one appointed by the Course Director/Academic Course Coordinator) during this placement to ensure they receive all necessary support.
All projects will be approved as being of a suitable standard for the Master’s in Therapeutic Sciences by the Course Director of the course and the degree committee for the Faculty of Biology.
It is anticipated that the dissertation will be split into two sections:
- An 8,000-word laboratory research project write-up consisting of an abstract, introduction, methods, results including tables, figure legends, and conclusions. This constitutes 70% of the project report mark.
- A distinct, separately assessed section of 2,000-word discussion on a business-related aspect of the project. This could include but is not limited to:
- Competitor analysis,
- Designing the three phases of a drug trial around the research project,
- Target product profile of the indication of the product in project
This second section will link to the project, but draw on the breadth of taught modules and as such reflect different learning and skills. It will be assessed separately from the laboratory research project write-up, constituting 30% of the overall project report mark.
Essays
Compulsory components of assessment: Deadlines for submission of written work and dates for examinations:
- Summative assessment paper that assesses a taught Research Skills Module (5% of the final mark) – for example, this might be a test on statistical or computational methods for data analysis or equivalent. This will be held at the end of the first term.
- Summative assessment in the form of a Review Essay, not exceeding 5,000 words in length, on a topic approved by the Degree Committee for the Faculty of Biology (25% of the final mark). Students will agree the topic with the Course Director(s)/Academic Course Coordinator; this might typically take the shape of a scientific review article around a current topic (e.g. in the format of ‘Current Opinions’, ‘Insights’ or ‘Frontiers’ journal articles). This will be submitted early January.
All essay topics will be approved by the Course Director prior to commencement.
Other
An end of year research symposium will take place at which students will be required to give oral presentations and produce a research poster.
Students may also be required to attend a viva in person in late August or early September.