OVERVIEW

Applied Medicinal Chemistry is the discipline dealing with  all the technological, scientific and bureaucratic aspects essential in order to develop and launch on the pharmaceutical market a new active pharmacological ingredient. Therefore in this course all the strategies carried out by pharmaceutical companies to optimize safety and bioavailability of a new drug are exhaustively treated.   

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Providing students all the fundamental principles they need to join a team of researchers of pharmaceutical firms involved in the design and development of a new drug endowed with high therapeutic index.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The main aim is to provide students all the fundamental principles about drug discovery and development, INN and IUPAC nomenclature of organic drugs, preformulation and biopharmaceutics studies, drugs metabolism, drugs targeting and advances in pharmaceutical polymers.

At the end of the Applied Medicinal Chemistry course, students will be able to:

• describe the pharmaceutical industry organization

• write the correct IUPAC name of an organic active pharmaceutical ingredient

• link the correct International Nonproprietary Name to the therapeutic class of the active pharmaceutical ingredient

• establish the best studies to define the chemical and physical properties of an active pharmaceutical ingredient

• design the best chemical and/or formulation changes for an active pharmaceutical ingredient to optimize its bioavailability

• identify the best strategies to improve the therapeutic index

PREREQUISITES

To completely understand all the topics treated in the course, students should have already passed the following exams: medicinal and toxicological chemistry I; technique, socioeconomy and pharmaceutical legislation I; organic chemistry.

TEACHING METHODS

Theoretical lessons are aimed at simplifying the comprehension of the pharmaceutical topics treated. In this context the teacher will use educational powerpoint presentations and, if necessary, he will have the opportunity to deepen those parts of the topic that may prove more difficult for the students to understand. Before starting a new lesson, to facilitate students to learn several connected chapters, a brief summing up of the previous lesson will be carried out. 

Any Student with documented Specific Learning Disorders (SLD), or with any special needs, shall reach out to the Lecturer(s) and to the dedicated SLD Representative in the Department ( Prof. Luca Raiteri, Luca.Raiteri@unige.it ) before class begins, in order to liaise and arrange the specific learning methods and ensure proper achievement of the learning aims and outcomes. VERY IMPORTANT: any request for compensatory tools and adaptations in the exam MUST be done within 10 working days before the date of the exam according to the instructions that can be found at https://unige.it/disabilita-dsa/comunicazioni

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

The course of Applied Medicinal Chemistry consists of the following chapters:

Drug Discovery and development

INN and IUPAC nomenclature of organic drugs

Macromolecules and pharmaceutics

Preformulation studies

Biopharmaceutics

The development of new active ingredients

Drugs metabolism

Drugs targeting

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

There are no particular reference texts or specifically dedicated to applied medicinal chemistry. The 8 chapters of the course are composed by topics put together properly by the teacher and deriving from updated and reliable reviews in this scientific field. Each chapter is exaustively explained to students throughout the lessons and for every chapter comprehensive notes are available in pdf format on the online platform Aulaweb.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

LESSONS START

Classes usually  start every year around the 20th of September with a weekly engagement of 6 hours splitted among three lessons each lasting two hours.

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

Except for the chapters concerning IUPAC nomenclature and macromolecules in pharmaceutics, for which students can take an optional written test during the course, Applied Medicinal Chemistry exam is an oral exam that lasts from 45 minutes to an hour. Questions will deal with 5 topics chosen by the teacher among the subjects treated during the course. To reduce the education burden during the preparation phase for the exam, students are strongly advised to participate in the two written tests during the course. The marks obtained in these two written tests will be averaged with the mark reported by students in the oral exam. 

ASSESSMENT METHODS

Due to the fact that the Applied Medicinal Chemistry Course deals with topics about the chemistry and bioavailability of most successful drugs, teacher will assess student's ability to both explain clearly all the topics treated in the course and write correctly chemical structures involved in the exam questions. In this context the quality of the written work and the oral presentation, the correct use of specialized vocabulary and the ability of critical reasoning on the study conducted, are essential for the assessment of the expected learning outcomes.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Ask the professor for other information n ot included in the teaching schedule.