Medicinal chemistry: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Medicinal Chemistry is a branch of chemistry involved in designing and developing pharmaceutical drugs. Medicinal chemistry includes the study of existing drugs, their biological properties, and their structure-activity relationships.

Medicinal chemistry is a highly interdisciplinary science combining organic chemistry with biochemistry, computational chemistry, pharmacology, cystallography, and physical chemistry.

Process of Drug Discovery

Discovery

The first step of drug discovery involves the identification of new active compounds, often called 'hits'. These 'hits' can come from artifical or natural sources, and are typically found by screening many compounds for the desired biological properties.

Optimization

The second step of drug discovery involves the synthetic modification of the 'hits' in order to improve the biological properties of the compound pharmacophore. The structure-activity relationships of the pharmacophore play an important part in finding 'lead compounds', which exhibit the most potency, most selectivity, and least toxicity.

Development

The final step involves the rendering the 'lead compounds' suitable for clinical use. This involves the optimization of the synthetic route for bulk production, and the preparation of a suitable drug formulation.