Undergraduate Course: Chemical Medicine Level 11 (CHEM11044)
Course Outline
| School | School of Chemistry |
College | College of Science and Engineering |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This is a 20-credit Senior Honours lecture course on applications of chemistry in medicine, with emphasis on pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. The course will engender an appreciation of the importance of structure-activity relationships in modern day drug design and development, cover the design and synthesis of diverse compound libraries, compare rational design vs high throughput screening as routes to drug leads, show how a knowledge of modes and mechanisms of action allows screening and elaboration of leads, engender appreciation of how chemists contribute new molecular entities with applications in diagnostics, drug delivery, biomaterials and tissue engineering.
This course is a compulsory requirement for Senior Honours MChem students on the Medicinal and Biological Chemistry degree, but can be taken by Senior Honours MChem students on any Chemistry degree programme.
The course comprises of individual component lecture courses and associated tutorials or workshops.
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| Course description |
The course comprises individual lecture courses on Medicinal Chemistry, Physical Organic Aspects of Medicinal Chemistry, Computational Approaches to Drug Design, Metals in Medicine, and Chemical Biology Approaches to Drug Design.
At the end of this course students will be able to:
- show an understanding of how the physicochemical properties of drugs relate to their biological properties
- appreciate how the field of chemical biology has impacted the discovery of new therapeutics in terms of enhanced understanding of protein-ligand interactions, new approaches to lead discovery and new methods for drug delivery
- understand how the use of chemoinformatics, virtual screening and docking can impact upon drug design
- describe the biomedical periodic table and the uses of metals in medicine
- describe common routes of administration of drugs and drug delivery systems
- describe common metabolic pathways and how they may be exploited in the design of drugs, prodrugs and soft drugs
- show understanding of rational approaches towards the design of important drugs and the biological implications of such therapeutic agents including the use of enzymes to inhibit protein processing as a concept for the design of new pharmaceuticals.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Show an understanding of the principal theories and concepts behind the application of chemistry to medicine, including the discovery of new therapeutic targets, the development of drugs, prodrugs and drug-like lead compounds, common routes to drug delivery and administration, and an awareness of current issues.
- Apply this chemical knowledge to: explain the properties of, propose synthetic routes to, explain the mode of action of, and propose new targets for, a range of drugs and drug-like lead compounds demonstrating originality and/or creativity in how this is knowledge is applied.
- Critically review current practices in the application of chemistry to medicine and demonstrate an ability to analyse or assess complex problems based on diverse, or limited, datasets demonstrating an informed judgement of the data supplied.
- Critically evaluate and use a wide range of numerical, graphical and schematic (including chemical structures and curly arrows) data and communicate this effectively.
- Show an appreciation of complex ethical and professional issues relating to the application of chemistry to medicine and make informed judgements on issues not addressed by current professional and/or ethical codes or practices.
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Reading List
| Recommendations on further reading will be provided by the individual lecturers. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Note-taking skills.
Numerical data interpretation and analysis.
Unseen problem solving skills. |
| Keywords | Chemical Medicine (L11) |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Alison Hulme
Tel: (0131 6)50 4711
Email: Alison.Hulme@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Craig Smith
Tel: (0131 6)50 4710
Email: c.smith34@ed.ac.uk |
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