Medicinal Chemistry
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.
The NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases posted a NIAID Now blog entry highlighting the findings in the research article "Targeting protein biotinylation enhances tuberculosis chemotherapy" from the in the April 25th issue of Science Translational Medicine co-authored by Courtney Aldrich.&
The Georg laboratory's research was hightlighted in an interview for the WCCO News segment "'U' Chemists Close to Making Male Birth Control Pill a Reality."
Dr. David Ferguson weighed in on the increase of overdoses from K2 - a synthetic cannabinoid - in Hennepin county in a recent article published by City Pages. As Dr. Ferguson explains, part of the issue arises from the ease with which K2 can be manufactured by opportunistic drug dealers without fully understanding the drug's toxicity. He "describes the process as opening a garage or storage unit, ordering some laboratory fume hoods, and buying the basic chemical building blocks off the dark web to be shipped through UPS or FedEx.
Pages
Research Facilities
Make use of the Department's over 30,000 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 facaulty research.
Events
Student Spotlight: Sara Coulup
Sara Coulup wins the best oral presentation at MIKI 2018.
Student Spotlight: Alex Strom
Alex Strom was awarded the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education Pre-Doctoral Fellowship.