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The development of new pharmaceuticals fundamentally relies on the ability to design and synthesize new compounds. Synthesis is an enabling discipline for medicinal chemistry - without it, the development of new drugs cannot progress from design to implementation, and ultimately to a cure. This unit will tackle important factors in drug design, and will highlight the current arsenal of methods used in the discovery of new drugs, including rational drug design, high throughput screening and combinatorial chemistry. We will develop a logical approach to planning a synthesis of a particular target structure. The synthesis and chemistry of heterocycles, which comprise some 40% of all known organic compounds and are particularly common in pharmaceuticals, will be outlined. Examples will include important ring systems present in biological systems, such as pyrimidines and purines (DNA and RNA), imidazole and thiazole (amino acids and vitamins) and porphyrins (natural colouring substances and oxygen carrying component of blood). Throughout the course, the utility of synthesis in medicinal chemistry will be illustrated with case studies such as anti-influenza (Relenza), anaesthetic (benzocaine), anti-inflammatory (Vioxx), antihypertensive (pinacidil) and cholesterol-lowering (Lovastatin) drugs. CHEM3915 students attend the same lectures as CHEM3115 students, but attend an additional advanced seminar series comprising one lecture a week for 12 weeks.
Code | CHEM3915 |
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Academic unit | Chemistry Academic Operations |
Credit points | 6 |
Prerequisites:
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[(65 or greater in (CHEM2401 or CHEM2911 or CHEM2915)) AND (65 or greater in (CHEM2402 or CHEM2912 or CHEM2916))] OR (65 or greater in (CHEM2521 or CHEM2921 or CHEM2991)) |
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Corequisites:
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None |
Prohibitions:
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CHEM3115 |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
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