Fully online, with a "unique" one-to-one faculty mentoring format instead of team projects.
Merged 2022 with National University. No idea if the fully-solo degree programming is still a thing.
Breaking news, UNC recruited the director of Mt Sinai AI Small Molecule Drug Discovery Center as Pharmacology Dept chair. How small must a molecule be to interest the Small Molecule Drug Discovery Center? NIH designates "small molecule" drugs by molecular weight: under 500 to 1000 Da (daltons, i.e. g/mol) as well as linear measure (presumably widest diameter?) up to 1 nm.
- Caffeine C8H10N4O2 : ~194 Da
- Aspirin C9H8O4 : ~180 Da
- Hydrocortisone : ~362.5 Da
- Omeprazole : ~345 Da
- Insulin : ~5,800 Da
... 1000 Da allows for a huge field of complex organic molecular configurations.
Most OTC topical and oral meds weigh under 500 Da, for simple mechanical skin absorption or GI bioavailability. Larger molecules also tend to get degraded by digestive enzyme and stomach acid before they can be absorbed effectively. So, maybe I'm assuming too much but it sounds like the SMDDC's focus on "small molecule" drugs is implicitly a search for topical/oral applications. Over 500 Da is still "big" for the GI lining permeability issue, but I suppose a capsule engineered to survive stomach acid to release lower in the GI could be meaningful for drugs that act directly on the intestinal biome or target intestinal wall ulcers/tumors.