Students enrolled in this course will learn a comprehensive overview of the principles and practical techniques involved in early-phase drug discovery and target validation. Students will learn about drug target identification and validation; assay development and screening; hit optimisation; lead identification for preclinical studies; and emerging methods in modern drug discovery. Emphasis will be placed on the multi-disciplinary nature of this stage of the drug discovery pipeline, ensuring a breadth of training on key techniques and principles of molecular biology, protein biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, structural biology, computational chemistry, and pharmacology.