2005 Handbooks

Primarily designed for the BMedScs students, this unit is an introduction to research in the modern pharmaceutical industry. The central core of the unit is the description of methods used for the discovery of new drugs, how these are modified to produce more active compounds, transportation to and from their points of action and how they are cleared from the body.

Topics covered include: the structure and function of biological targets (proteins and DNA); lead generation/sources of drugs; methods of lead modification. The discovery of new drugs cannot be carried out without bioassays so a variety of screening methods is examined. This is followed by a study of structure-activity methods (QSAR, combinatorial chemistry, computational methods) and biodisposition (pharmaco-kinetics, drug metabolism, prodrugs) and finally a look at regulatory affairs and patents.

The unit is taught from a series of case studies to exemplify one or more topics. This is supplemented by practical classes utilising synthetic chemistry, spectroscopic methods and computational chemistry.