BackgroundOver the years, approaches of the pharmaceutical industry to discover and develop drugs have changed rapidly due to new scientific trends. Among others, they have started to explore Machine Learning (ML), a subset of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as a promising tool to generate new hypotheses regarding drug candidate selections for clinical trials and to predict adverse side effects. Despite these recent developments, the possibilities of ML in pharmaceutical sciences have so far hardly penetrated the training of pharmaceutical science students. 1, 2 Therefore, as part of an elective course, an introductory module on ML was developed at Utrecht University, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess student’ views on the module set-up, and their perspectives on ML within pharmaceutical science curricula. MethodsSemi-structured interviews over three years were conducted with 15 students participating in the module. ResultsThe students valued the well-designed and effective delivered module. They were personally motivated to learn more about ML in a future master or research internship. The students now perceive a lack of possibilities for ML training in pharmaceutical sciences education and indicate the value of incorporating ML opportunities for their future career. ConclusionIntegrating ML training into pharmaceutical sciences curricula is needed to keep future drug researchers up to date with drug research advancements, enhancing their skills, academic development, and career prospects.

An educational escape room is a form of game-based learning that has been shown to improve students' learning experience. A cardiovascular escape room was designed to promote the development of transversal skills and help students retain learned content knowledge in an integrated pharmacology and therapeutic unit in a Pharmacy course. ObjectiveThis study aims to design, pilot, and evaluate the students' self-perceived transversal skills, learning experience and knowledge acquisition from a cardiovascular educational escape room. MethodsThe model pharmacy at Curtin University was used as the room that students were challenged to escape. Students were required to acquire a four-digit safe code, with each digit derived from four separate briefcases containing different puzzles and clues. This code enabled students to unlock a lifesaving medication to successfully escape the room and rescue a fictional patient who had collapsed outside of the pharmacy. Each session was followed by a debrief to reflect on the learning experience. ResultsFifty-four students participated in the study. Eight out of twelve groups successfully escaped the room. There was negligible difference in the score of the pre- and post-knowledge assessments. All students strongly agreed/agreed that the escape room was an effective way to review the cardiovascular content covered in the lecture and tutorial and that the activity should be continued for future students. ConclusionStudents perceived the education escape room as a valuable learning exercise to help them retain content knowledge and develop transversal skills in the learning of integrated pharmacology and therapeutic within a Pharmacy course.