Pharmaceutical analytical chemistry
Analytical chemistry is about principles and methods for chemical measurement, and is among others used for identification and quantification of drug substances in tablets and blood samples. Analytical chemistry related to drug substances defines the area of pharmaceutical analytical chemistry.
The pharmaceutical industry does such measurements to a large extent, to check the quality of pharmaceutical ingredients, and to make sure that the compositions of finished pharmaceutical preparations are according to specifications. Chemical measurements are also performed to large extent in hospitals to verify that patients are dosed correctly, and in doping laboratories to verify that athletes are clean.
The new textbook, international reference for teaching?
Our new textbook covers the fundamentals of pharmaceutical analytical chemistry. The textbook is written for pharmacy students (university level), to address the EU requirements for teaching “analytical chemistry” and for “adequate knowledge on chemical testing of medicinal products”.
The content, level, and focus of teaching in analytical chemistry for pharmacists are very different across educations in Europe and US, and traditionally general textbooks in analytical chemistry are used. However, these textbooks are not anchored in pharmaceutical applications.
Our textbook, originating from UiO, integrates analytical chemistry into the pharmaceutical disciplines, and the ambition is that the textbook can serve as international reference.
The textbook will also be valuable for chemistry and biochemistry students, aiming for the pharmaceutical industry, hospital laboratories, forensic laboratories and doping laboratories.
The authors
The textbook is authored by Stig Pedersen-Bjergaard and Trine Grønhaug Halvorsen from
Department of Pharmacy (UiO), in collaboration with Bente Gammelgaard from University of Copenhagen. With authors from different universities, different teaching cultures have been merged into the textbook. Therefore, the textbook probably has potential for implementation at different universities, more or less independently of teaching culture.
A long project…
Our new textbook is based on a long tradition with production of educational material. We started with compendia written from year 1996 to 2004, then a Norwegian student textbook (first edition in 2004 and the second in 2010, Fagbokforlaget), and an international textbook in English in year 2012 (Wiley). Our new textbook, written in English and printed by Wiley, is thus based on more than 20 years with continuous development of the teaching. This work has included numerous decisions on which subjects to include, development of scientific framework and structure, and clarity of presentation.