Medicinal Chemistry
Mission of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry
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Education and training of scientists of the highest caliber
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Providing future pharmacy practitioners with the basis for understanding the relationship between molecular structure and the therapeutic, dispositional, and toxicological aspects of drug action
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Improvement of human health through chemical and biological research
A diverse education in chemistry and biology that prepares students for the evolving multidisciplinary research of the pharmaceutical industry and academia.
Medicinal Chemistry
Medicinal Chemistry is a dynamic, multifaceted scientific discipline that is dedicated to the improvement of human health through research that leads to the design and development of safe and effective therapeutic, diagnostic, and environmental agents.
Research Areas
Biosafety/ biosecurity, cancer and neurological drug discovery, chemical neuroscience, chemoprevention and carcinogenesis, combinatorial biosynthesis, computer-aided drug design, drug metabolism, gene therapy, high-throughput screening, immunology, NMR, non-hormonal contraception, peptidomimetics and X-ray crystallography.
Faculty Spotlight: Courtney Aldrich
Dr. Aldrich received a $3.8 million NIH grant for the project "Siderophore Inhibitors for Tuberculosis that Block Mycobactin Biosynthesis" on which he is the sole PI. Also, his collaborative research was the focus of a LA times article.
Faculty Spotlight: Natalia Tretyakova
Dr. Natalia Tretyakova has been named a Distinguished McKnight University Professor.
Faculty Spotlight: Gunda Georg
Dr. Gunda Georg’s research towards male contraceptives was featured on several broadcast news outlets including the front page of the Star Tribune.
Institute for Therapeutics Discovery & Development
The ITDD carries out interdisciplinary research, helps educate the next generation of scientists, and enhances the biomedical research infrastructure by creating opportunities for drug discovery and early pre-clinical drug development.
This spring phase I/II clinical trials began for QLS-101: a novel prodrug developed by the ITDD's Dr. Peter Dosa in collaboration with Dr. Michael Fautsch of the Mayo Clinic. The licensee for the drug, Qlaris Bio, has now created a video to explain how the drug reduces the pressure inside the eye, with the hopes of providing relief to people with increased eye pressure. You can watch the video here.
Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Ambrose for her appointment to the editorial board for the journal of Bioorganic Chemistry!
Graduate student Alex Hurben of the Doran and Tretyakova labs has been awarded the Exceptional Presentation Award in Chemical Biology at the American Chemical Society's 2021 Great Lakes Regional Meeting. His presentation "Shining a Light on Endogenous Electrophiles: Releasing Methylglyoxal with Spatiotemporal Control in Biological Systems" took place at the Chemical Biology Interface session on June 9th.
Congratulations to our graduate students who have been awarded 2021 fellowships from the University of Minnesota's College of Pharmacy!
Pages
Research Facilities
Make use of the Department's over 50,000 square feet of modern research laboratory space located within the Academic Health Center and the Biomedical Discovery District. Read more about our instrumentation, laboratories, facilities and faculty research.
Events
Student Spotlight: Jian Tang
Graduate student Jian Tang of the Harki Laboratory received a 2020-21 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship.
Student Spotlight: Erik Faber
Erik Faber was selected to receive the 2021 Abul-Hajj/Hanna Exceptional Graduate Student Award in Medicinal Chemistry.