A Bioinformatics Practicum to Develop Student Understanding of Immunological Rejection of Protein Drugs

Objectives. To design and implement a bioinformatics exercise that applies immunological principles to predicting rejection of protein drugs based upon patient genotype. Design. Doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students used the Immune Epitope Database, a freely available bioinformatics tool. Over a 2-week laboratory, students interrogated whether a protein drug would be predicted to induce an immune response based upon patient genotype. Results were presented at the last laboratory session, and students completed reports discussing their findings. Assessment. Pre-lab quizzes and a final report were graded. Students answered questionnaires assessing perceived learning gains. To determine the impact on student understanding of immunity against protein drugs, the quality of student data analysis and comparisons to class data were graded. Independent measures of student learning demonstrated that students developed a greater understanding of how patient genotype could contribute to treatment failure with protein drugs. Conclusions. This study indicates that questions related to clinical immunology can be posed using bioinformatics tools.