The importance of pharmaceuticals in our society cannot be underestimated. From fighting bacterial and viral infections to facilitating organ transplants or arresting cancer proliferation, drugs have saved and improved the lives of countless millions. Indeed, the vast majority of people, at some point in their lives, have taken a drug, whether it be a simple over-the counter drug like Aspirin, or a drug prescribed by a physician, such as an antibiotic. Have you ever wondered where these drugs come from? Or how they are conceived and made? Or what happens to a drug when it enters your body? Or how carefully drugs are tested before they reach the market?
Although most drugs are prescribed to us by physicians, they usually do not develop the drugs they prescribe. Sometimes drugs, such as penicillin, are obtained from nature. But more often than not, drugs are usually conceived, designed, and made by medicinal chemists working in university laboratories and pharmaceutical companies around the world.
Medicinal Chemistry deals with the design, optimization, and development of chemical compounds for use as drugs. It is a multidisciplinary topic — beginning with the design of potential drugs, followed by their synthesis, and then studies investigating their interactions with biological targets to understand the medicinal effects of the drug, its metabolism, and side-effects. Consequently, Medicinal Chemistry is at the interface of a variety of fields, including synthetic organic chemistry, biochemistry, computational chemistry, and pharmacology.
The Medicinal Chemistry program at Waterloo provides you with the opportunity to learn about all aspects of drug design and development, as well as with the option of focusing on a specific discipline within Medicinal Chemistry, be it organic synthesis, computer modelling, or biochemistry.