School of Pharmacy

School of pharmacy, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology was established in 1971 which is one of the most historic pharmacy schools in Central-South of China. With an enduring dedication to the pursuit of excellence for over forty years, it has been progressed into a key national institute for training professionals in pharmacy. To date, over 8000 brilliant graduates are playing important roles in this field nation-wide.

School of Pharmacy is made up of six departments including Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Analytical Chemistry, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Biopharmaceutical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Business and Trade, and two centers which are Experimental Teaching Center and Analysis and Testing Center. In addition, Hubei training program for China Pharmacist License is authorized to implement in our school. The six departments offer courses and award academic degrees based on three undergraduate programs which are Pharmaceutical Science program, a translational program – Pharmaceutical Business and Trade, and Biopharmaceutical Sciences program. The latter one is the National Training Subject for Talents in Life Science and Technology. Since 2008, National Personnel Training Center has been set up based on this program. Over 750 degree candidates, including 400 undergraduates, 200 post-graduates and 90 international students are involved in full-time education in our school.

About 80 faculty members are in affiliated education and research, in which 18 of them are professors, 36 are associate professors, most of whom are doctoral tutors. We are honored to have one distinguished member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, one distinguised professor of Yangtze river scholars,  four awardees of New Century Excellent Scholar Supporting Program. Five members are honored by governmental pensions for significant professionals and one for outstanding specialist appointed by the Department of Health. In addition, our school members have been active in all different academic and research areas. We have one member of committee of National Pharmacopoeia, six specialists in drug discovery evaluation of China, six elected members in Chinese Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Chinese Association of Pharmacology, two Vice Presidents and two Deputy Secretaries of Pharmaceutical Society of Hubei and one Vice President and Four executive directors of Pharmaceutical Society of Wuhan. Sixteen of them are editorial board members of local and international publications.

Tongji Pharmacy has one post-doctor station, and is entitled to confer primary discipline doctoral degrees in Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Analysis, Pharmacognosy, Pharmacology and Microbiology and Biopharmacy programs. The School also has several research-oriented primary discipline master’s degrees in Pharmacy and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The secondary discipline of Pharmacology received national cultivation. Discipline of Pharmacy was selected as the key primary discipline in Hubei Province. Tongji School of Pharmacy has set up many key labs, including one provincial Key Laboratory: Natural Product Chemistry and Resource Assessment.

Faculty members are passionate and curious individuals who continue their own research while teaching. School of Pharmacy is always dedicated to the research and innovation. Our research areas cover different topics, like malignant tumor, heart and cerebral vessels disease, nervous system disease, diabetes, immune system and respiratory system disease, etc. We explored computer assistant drug design, pre-drug discovery and modulation, evaluation of natural pharmaceutical resources and quality, principle of the drug activities in vivo and pharmacokinetic discipline. New drug formulation and drug quality control are also involved.

At present, it obtained two National Major Scientific and Technological Special Projects for “Significant New Drugs Development”, which are Wuhan Comprehensive New Drug Research and Development Platform and National Engineering Research Center for Nano-medicine. It is also playing a leading part in several biomedical research centers. Within past five years, seven funds based on preclinical drug study were received from National Major Scientific and Technology Special Project, two were received from 973 project and two from 863 project of Ministry of Science and Technology of China. We won fifteen Technology Awards and applied 42 patents. Furthermore, more than four hundreds publications have been cited by Science Citation Index in which seven of them have the impact factor over ten. Our efforts have made an important contribution to make the three disciplines of ‘Pharmacology and Toxicology', ‘Chemistry’ and ‘Biology and Biochemistry’ of Huazhong University of Science and Technology be in the top 1% of the ESI international ranking.

Over eighty large scale facilities, such as NMR Spectrometer, LC-MS, GC-MS, high resolution MS, Gel Imaging System, Biofermenters, Computer Aid Drug Design System, SFC extraction instrument, IR, UV, HPLC (analytical and preparative grade), GC etc are available for research and teaching for the users within the University.

Our school has long term co-operations with over ten pharmaceutical companies as Humanwell Health Care Group CO., LTD, Zhuhai Rundu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Grand Pharma (China) Co., Ltd. QR Science and Technology, etc. Several new drug research and development platforms, research projects have been set up based on these co-operations. We also provide the technical supports for the companies which bring great social and economic benefits. 23 new drugs have been discovered, among which, nine second grade national new medicines were assigned to pharmaceutical companies. And five primary grade national new medicines and ten of the other new medicines are in research level.

The school of pharmacy  and its departments are committed to widening participation to higher education. Several courses, such as Natural Product Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Pharmacogonosy, Medicinal Chemistry, and Pharmaceutics are one of the best in China or the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Our school is one of the first schools which are supported by National University Student Innovation Program. Faculty members have actively participated in compiling up to 21 textbooks predominantly used in China, as well as more than 50 publishing research reference books.

With an enduring dedication to the pursuit of excellence, school of pharmacy offers unparalleled student experiences of internship practices in academic environments. We have set up 16 out-of-school connections for undergraduate internship and organize ten day’s trip to mountain Lushan for medicinal plants study every summer. Many scientific activities have been arranged throughout the year for the students from different generations to inspire their creations on approaching the new ideas of the drug development. To strengthen the international exchange, more and more young scholars across a broad spectrum joined our school and Professors from top universities worldwide are teaching and giving presentations to our staff and students. We have also set up long-term collaborations on students exchange programs with schools of pharmacy in Germany, Britain, United States, Japan, Korea and Singapore. Since 2012, five undergraduate students financially supported by Chinese Scholarship Council perform their graduation lab practice in Marburg University, Germany each year. We also have a program called ‘3+2’ with University of Rhode Island, United States which awards a master degree based on three years’ undergraduate study and two years of post-graduate study from 2014. Furthermore, around fifteen exchange undergraduates are studying National University of Singapore since 2016.

With those efforts, our graduates become the most popular ones in international pharmaceutical companies in the recent 5 years and many postgraduates start to work in high ranking universities within China and institutes of Chinese Academy of Science. Working area covers from drug development, manufactures, drug supply to drug management.

‘China Licensed Pharmacist Training Center’ is established by school of pharmacy and Hubei Food and Drug Administration. More than 3000 licensed pharmacists are trained in each year and become the specialists in different pharmaceutical manufactures. This work makes a great contribution to improve the professional skill of the pharmacy employees

School of pharmacy is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning and research in many pharmacy disciplines to push the school into one of the top pharmacy school in China.