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.
Dr. Gunda Georg gave her Alfred Burger Award Lecture at the 2021 ACS Spring meeting on April 6th. The lecture took place during the award ceremony to honor the 2020 ACS awardees. The Alfred Burger Award recognizes outstanding contributions to research in medicinal chemistry.
Congrats to MD/PhD graduate student Erik Faber of the Georg lab for receiving the Veneziale-Steer Award from the University of Minnesota's Medical School. The award recognizes outstanding basic scientific research by a graduate student or a medical student in the field of cellular growth regulation.
Dr. Elizabeth Ambrose and Grad Student Connor McDermott Presenting on Paleopharma at ACS Spring 2021
Dr. Elizabeth Ambrose and Connor McDermott, a graduate student in Dr. Ambrose's lab, will be presenting their research on paleopharmaceuticals from baltic amber at the spring 2021 meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). As Dr. Ambrose explained in a press release to the ACS,
Carston “Rick” Wagner, PhD, has been named the 2021 recipient of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy’s (AACP) Volwiler Research Achievement Award.
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.