University College London

In this course, students consider the ways of identifying novel compounds for development and the processes which take place before such compounds are released onto the market following its introduction into clinical practice. The course includes an opportunity for group project work on the development of a specific drug and series of case studies looking at the criteria which contributes to successful outcome in a drug development program. 

Students are introduced to the fundamental principles of clinical research studies, with emphasis on clinical trials rather than observational studies. Students are guided through the design, conduct, and analysis and reporting of clinical trials and the common sub-studies often added to them (e.g. health economics). Students are also introduced to systematic reviews and meta-analyses and the important role they play in answering important clinical research questions. A session of the course is dedicated to the role patients and consumers can play in clinical trial design, conduct, and reporting.

This course explores the relationship between collective and individual behavior, society, and technology. It is especially concerned with how technologies evolve in relation to organizational, collective, and individual behavior, and vice versa. The course evaluates how technologies deliver (and fail to deliver) profitable, effective, and valuable products services processes and activities. It also explores in detail the relationship between society and technology, especially in terms of how and why technologies succeed and fail; the value that technologies deliver (and do not deliver); and the wider position of technology in society. Students examine also the relationship between individuals and technology, and how behavior influences how technologies are developed, and how technologies influence and shape behavior.

Food is fundamental to survival and a powerful lens with which to view social realities. Social groups are reproduced by activities such as eating together whilst food practices are constrained by inequitable access to material resources and subject to intense moral scrutiny. This course provides a broad introduction to the study of food and eating in the social sciences, particularly sociology and anthropology, and why they are now high on many countries’ policy agendas. Taking an historical and international approach, students explore innovative social scientific contributions to the study of global challenges including dietary health, food poverty, and sustainability.

This course is an introductory survey of linguistics, focusing on natural language phenomena, and the methods and findings of linguists seeking to understand them. Students address the following subdomains of linguistics during the course: phonetics (physical properties of language forms, e.g. sounds), phonology (the psychological representation of language forms), morphology (how language forms combine to form words), syntax (how words combine to form phrases and sentences), semantics (the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences), pragmatics (how sentences are used in context), language acquisition (how languages are learned by children and adults), sociolinguistics (how language is affected by social context), and language and the brain (how language is processed in the brain and language disorders).

This course gives students an understanding of the power and limitations of the theoretical constructs used to interpret human behavior in economics, as brought to bear on observed consumption behavior; to enable them to critically evaluate policies targeted at individuals, both in terms of their theoretical basis and of their practical importance, and to recognize the importance of measurement in the design and evaluation of policy and the challenges it poses. Students build upon the core material learned in the first two years of the BSc (Econ) Economics degree program to further study problems pertinent to our understanding of individual choices, to their measurement, and to the design and evaluation of policy.