The human health care industry is entering an exciting new era, with a wide range of biopharmaceuticals now approved for human use. The sequencing of the human genome, the evolution of new methods for the production of recombinant biopharmaceuticals, the ability to produce human antibodies and recent developments in gene therapy have seen biopharmaceutical discovery and production become a major global focus of research activity. The course is designed to give students a detailed insight into techniques in biopharmaceutical discovery, isolation and characterization. The practical work includes production of a model recombinant biopharmaceutical by cell culture, including downstream processing and characterization using modern techniques analytical biotechnology including mass spectrometry. On-line bioinformatics tutorials and assignments associated with model biopharmaceuticals are included in the practical program.