FA506: Medicinal Chemistry A (5 ECTS)

STADS: 03000801

Level
Bachelor course

Teaching period
The course is offered in the autumn semester.

Teacher responsible
Email: trond@sdu.dk

Timetable
Show entire timetable
Show personal time table for this course.

Prerequisites:
None.

Academic preconditions:
Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have good knowledge of KE505 Organic chemistry A
• Have knowledge of fundamental cell biology

Course introduction
The aim of the course is to give the student an overview over the central parts of medicinal chemistry, including the mechanism of action of active principles in drugs, and a more detailed insight in selected medicinal chemistry themes. The course will enable the student to integrate knowledge from organic chemistry, biology and molecular biology, toxicology, physiology and medicine. Furthermore, the course will train the students in critical reading of scientific literature and in scientific presentation.

The course builds on knowledge acquired from KE505 Organic chemistry and presumes basic knowledge of cell biology. Medicinal chemistry is highly interdisciplinary and will enable to student to integrate knowledge from other courses such as molecular biology, physiology and toxicology, and will introduce the student to an important area for applications of theoretical and practical organic chemistry. The course forms basis for further studies in medicinal chemistry and pharmacy, and for bachelor projects related to medicinal chemistry.

The course will also support other studies within chemistry.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give the competence to recognize interdisciplinary aspects and understand design and development of active drug principles.
• Give skills to acquire new knowledge in an efficient and independent manner from lectures, textbook and scientific papers, and to reflectively, critically and analytically take advantage of this knowledge, to structure acquired information, describe, formulate and disseminate problems and results in a scientific context.
• Give knowledge and understanding of important themes and terms in medicinal chemistry, overview over pharmaceutical compound classes, their metabolism and interactions, the physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties of active drug principles, and insight in selected areas of modern medicinal chemistry.

Qualifications
FA

Expected learning outcome
The learning objectives of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Demonstrate a broad overview  over medicinal compound classes
• Explain and use important terms in medicinal chemistry, including agonism and antagonism, SAR, ADME, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics
• Explain the mechanism of action of representative drugs
• Provide an overview of important molecular drug targets in the body
• Draw the chemical structures of central signaling molecules and drugs
• Provide an overview of, recognize and explain types of molecular interactions between the drug and the target
• Formulate hypotheses for interactions between a given drug and a target and for how this interaction can be optimized
• Provide an overview of and explain absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of drugs and formulate hypotheses for how the chemical structure of a given drug can optimized with regard to these factors
• Read and understand articles in the medicinal chemistry journals and critically analyze, interpret and explain the reported results.
• Analyzed a dataset for a given compound series, form hypotheses for structure-activity relationships and formulate optimization strategies

Subject overview
The following main topics are contained in the course:

• Drugs and drug targets in general
• Drug-target interactions
• Proteins
• Enzymes as drug targets
• Receptors as drug targets
• Pharmacokinetics
• Drug discovery and development
• Lead identification
• Lead optimization – optimizing drug target interaction and pharmacokinetic properties
• Antibacterial agents
• Nucleic acids as drug targets
• Antiviral agents
• Anticancer drugs
• The cholinergic system
• The adrenergic system
• Opioid analgesics
• Antiulcer agents

Literature

• Graham L. Patrick: An Introduction to Medicinal Chemistry, 5th Ed, Oxford, 2009.

Website
This course uses e-learn (blackboard).

Prerequisites for participating in the exam

1. Group presentation of articles. Pass/fail, internal marking by the teacher.

Assessment and marking:

1. Oral exam (20 minutes). Danish 7-mark scale, external marking. No exam aids apart from a computer for article presentation. A closer description of the exam rules will be posted under 'Course Information' on Blackboard. (5 ECTS). (03000802).

Expected working hours
The teaching method is based on three phase model.
Intro phase: 30 hours
Skills training phase: 26 hours, hereof:
 - Tutorials: 26 hours

Educational activities

Educational form
Activities during the study phase:

• Studies of the textbook
• Written exercises
• Studies of scientific articles
• Preparations of article presentations in groups
• Repetitions for the exam
• Preparation of article presentation for the exam

Language
This course is taught in Danish or English, depending on the lecturer. However, if international students participate, the teaching language will always be English.

Course enrollment
See deadline of enrolment.

Tuition fees for single courses
See fees for single courses.