Kevin

With the start of the academic year at Ghent University, also the new S-DISCO students started today with their first semester courses. After an intensive summer school last week, with some pleasant social moments, they are ready for this new adventure. We wish them all an enjoyable and interesting semester at UGent Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences!

Currently ongoing (also online): second WHO symposium on the future of health systems in a digital era. Generative artificial intelligence (AI), digital health, big data, One Health digitals technologies, … : sustainability of health systems by intelligent data use.

A new UN publication highlights the importance of sustainable wastewater (WW) treatment for a healthy planet. One of the main classes of emerging pollutants in the WW are pharmaceuticals. The reuse or environmental release of insufficiently treated WW increases the risk of pharmaceutical pollution, undermining human and ecosystem health. Advanced WW treatment techniques can only partially remove […]

After the second round of applications (deadline March 31 2023), we are happy to announce that the total number of applications has increased to 696. From these, 27 students received a letter of acceptance from the S-DISCO consortium; 22 of them were granted an EMJM scholarship. Applications for the next academic year (2024-2025) will be […]

Last month, our students organized the first Sustainable Drug Discovery (S-DISCO) Days in Gdańsk, Poland. This yearly international scientific conference aims to raise awareness and expand the knowledge on sustainability in drug discovery for students, scientists and experts from various institutions and industries. We would like to thank the students for the perfect organization, the […]

Today is Europe Day! On 9 May every year we celebrate peace and unity in Europe. How will you celebrate the occasion?

End of April, the European Commission has released its proposal for major change in the human pharmaceutical legislation, undoubtedly making the system more sustainable. One of the key changes is the importance of the environmental risk assessment (ERA), in line with the European Green Deal. The ERA rightfully now becomes a possible reason for not […]

During the first round of applications for the academic year of 2023-2024, 672 valid applications were received for our Master in Sustainable Drug Discovery (SDISCO) programme requesting an EMJM scholarship. These applications are now being thoroughly evaluated. Each applicant will receive their result before the end of this month if they are selected for the […]

In our recent publication green chemistry principles were applied to the preparation of an analytical reagent. The functionality and cost-efficiency were included to evaluate sustainability. A Derringer desirability function was used to obtain a sustainability score. Replacing acetonitrile by ethanol resulted in the most sustainable reagent. Other factors were of less influence on the total […]

With the introduction of the FDA modernization act 2.0, animal testing in drug development is no longer an absolute requirement in the US. Is this a step forward to more sustainable drug development?