FIRST is open to students from pharmaceutical sciences, medicine, natural sciences, biotechnology and chemistry and aims to recruit excellent students. Prerequiste for admission will be a Master´s degree (MSc, MPhil), university diploma (Diplom) or state medical exam (Staatsexamen).
Outstanding students (top 5%) possessing a Fachhochschul-Abschluß can be considered for admittance but must successfully complete an extra qualifying year. Based on the level of education of the student, one member of the Teaching Committee will compile an individual prepatory course programme together with the student. This individual qualifying programme needs to be approved by the whole Teaching Committee.
FIRST will award doctoral degrees in accordance with the regulations of the participating faculties. The faculties for Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacy awards a Dr.phil.nat. ("Promotionsordnung der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fachbereiche der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, May 26th, 1993, last amendment July 9th, 2003). Currently the non-medical graduate students at the medical faculty receive their doctoral training and degree in collaboration with the science faculties. The medical faculty is currently establishing regulations for awarding a PhD to graduate students from the natural sciences and pharmaceutics and an MD/PhD to physicains.
In general, these regulations for awarding doctoral degrees require that the students have demonstrated the ability to understand, design, implement and critically evaluate a research process which has enabled them to make a contribution through original research. This must be done in a thesis and a successful presentation and defense of this thesis in public. FIRST does not have specific additional formal requirements for doctorates, but FIRST students are expected to have documented their research contribution by at least three national or international peer-reviewed publications, at least one as first author. FIRST PhD students are encouraged to write and defend their thesis in English.
The scientific progress of the PhD students during their studies is reviewed in the research meetings as well as during the FIRST Summer School by the supervisor, the 2 co-supervisors and the Scientific Advisory Board. Ideally, the 2 co-supervisors should have different backgrounds then the main supervisor, so that the PhD student has close personal contact with scientists having different expertises. The funtion of the supervisor team is to monitor the progress of each student and to encourage FIRST students in their endevours to develop and critically evaluate their reseach goals and strategies. The supervisor committee should be the first to identfy potential problems with the FIRST educational programme and is responsible for designing alternative courses of action to help the students to achieve their overall goal. A half-time exaluation is held after 18 months in order the quality standards are met.
In addition to the doctorate, FIRST awards a diploma in Drug Research, Development and Safety ("FIRST Certificate") at the end of the teaching curriculum. This diploma is based on the successful completion of an educational programme from the FIRST course catalogue. Exams are a combination of oral or written tests and practical tasks, e.g. the preparation of a business plan, project outline or grant application, or designing a preclinical safety test programme.
The 3-year curriculum
The transfer of key knowledge and skills specific to the field of drug research and development is a multi-stage, three-year process (plus an additional qualifying year for those graduates with a BSc/Fachhochschul-degree):
· Catch-up term & 1st year
Of primary concern in the first three months is to establish a common knowledge and methodical platform for all of the PhD students. Here, graduates from the natural sciences are introduced into medical terminology and pharmacology (Basics in Medicine & Pharmacology), while pharmacists and physicians aquire the basics in molecular and cellular biology (Molecular Medicine, Biological and Medicinal Chemistry). The first modules of the FIRST Core Curriculum on the basics in drug research, development, safety, as well as target identification and drug optimisation will be taught in the first year.
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· 2nd & 3rd year
In the 2nd and 3rd years, the PhD students receive training in the fields of preclinical safety testing, animal models, drug formulation developement, clinical studies, German/European/international regulations (GMP, GLP, GCP, ICH), drug approval and basic marketing techniques (FIRST Core Curriculum). In the 2nd year, the PhD students take also courses such as Scientific Writing and Presentation, and one or two elective courses according to their interests and topic of their PhD research.
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