As one of the activities to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the University of Macau (UM) Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), Associate Professor Kin Yip TAM has recently provided around 300 students of Escola Xin Hua with an enjoyable experience of science learning by delivering the science talk “Pharmaceutical Century – Ten Decades of Drug Discovery” to enrich their studies and broaden their horizons in science.
Prof. Kin Yip TAM pointed out that the medical advancement in drug development, which is the process of bringing a new drug molecule into clinical practice, throughout history has been pivotal in assisting the survival of vast populations of human. He mentioned that the path to a marketed drug involved a long and exhaustive journey through basic research, discovery of the medicine, preclinical development tests, increasingly complicated clinical trials with humans, and regulatory approval by the relevant authorisations. According to him, the development history of important drugs was made by standing on the shoulders of pioneers who revolutionized science.
In addition, Prof. Tam talked about the relation of new technologies and drug development. Drug discovery and development rely on not only DNA sequencers but a wide variety of new tools for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating genetic and genomic information. He took an example of Dolly which was the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell. Her birth opened up a lot of possibilities in biology and medicine.
During the talk, one student made an enquiry about the ethical issue of the scientist who had created the world’s first gene-edited twins using the gene-editing technology. Prof. Tam stressed that the scientist’s activities seriously violated ethical principles and scientific integrity and breached the relevant regulations of China. He reminded the students that before having resolved the important safety issues of the gene-editing, any creation of genetically altered human embryos would be an extremely irresponsible behavior, and definitely a disaster.
Prof. Tam also shared the students with the structure of FHS, the curricula of the programmes, graduate prospects and the different joint programmes offered by FHS. The science talk was filled with warm atmosphere under strong discussion, during which Prof. Tam invigorated the students to be open-minded and put no boundaries on themselves but not violating ethical legitimacy in making important firsts in science to change the world.
Student raised question at the end of the talk
Prof. Kin Yip TAM introduce the drug development