OVERVIEW

Experimental design (or design of experiments, DoE) is the branch of chemometrics dealing with the rational design of sets of experiments leading to the best compromise between information and experimental effort.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Goal of the course is to make the participants able to design by themselves sets of experiments leading to the solution of real problems.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

After the course the participants will be able to use by themselves the basic designs (factorial design, Plackett-Burman, Central Composite) and to set in a proper way a multivariate problem.

TEACHING METHODS

The course (about 30 hours) is taught by lectures in which the main experimental designs (factorial design, Plackett-Burman, Central Composite Design, Doehlert, mixture designs, ...) are shown. Specific attention is given to the mental approach required by a multivariate analysis.

The participants will also use a specific software that can be freely downloaded from the site of the Italian Group of Chemometrics.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

When studying the effect of more than one factor on a response (e.g., the effect of time, temperature and pressure on the yield of a chemical reaction), the "classical" approach only changes one factor at a time, by keeping constant all the remaining factors.
This is what the very great majority of people doing experiments does. Well, this approach is totally wrong for many reasons, the main one is because it does not take into account the presence of interactions among variables (interaction between variable A and variable B means that the effect of variable A changes according to the level of variable B).
As previously mentioned, by using DoE it is possible to get high quality results and information with a relatively small number of experiments, which means getting better results with a much smaller experimental effort.
It can be easily seen how great the economical impact of this strategy can be!
Unfortunately, DoE, in spite of its simplicity and its efficiency, is still not as known and applied as it should be (in spite of the fact that the first book on DoE has been published by Fischer in 1935!).
Students of Pharmacy (and even more students of CTF) should know that the use of DoE is highly recommended by the Food and Drug Administration in a guideline published in 2004.
Therefore, in a future interview with a pharmaceutical company, some knowledge of DoE makes for sure a great advantage for the candidate.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

The slides of the course will be given, together with several scientific papers on the topic.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ELEONORA RUSSO (President)

BRUNO TASSO (President)

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam is made by a multiple choice questionnaire and the solution of a problem.

Exam schedule