Medicinal Chemistry (CHEM503)

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. understand in depth the interplay of structure, property and function of selected biologically important molecules and critically apply this advanced and integrated knowledge to solve problems in medicinal chemistry;
2. devise routes to selected classes of complex molecules and critically analyse, reflect on and synthesise complex information from resources such as scifinder scholar to access appropriate scientific literature to refine designs;
3. apply an advanced and integrated knowledge of inorganic chemistry to the understanding of complex structure and function relationships of metal containing drugs and enzymes;
4. research and apply established theories to predict the pharmacokinetics of drugs in the body using quantitative structure property relationships and derive relationships relating structure and bioactivity;
5. apply knowledge and expert skills to demonstrate common procedures such as reductive amination, acylation, crystallisation and chromatography to synthesise bioactive compounds as well as autonomously performing risk assessments and expert judgement and responsibility to ensure a safe working environment; and
6. write comprehensive descriptions of experimental procedures for specialist chemists, and non-specialists, and effectively communicate ideas using established scientific language.