Tuesday, February 18, 2014

EdX class in medicinal chemistry

Professor Erland Stevens of Davidson College is teaching a class on medicinal chemistry on EdX. Here's a brief syllabus:
The seven-week course starts on March 10th.  Each week has about 1 hour of video and a number of accompanying web pages.

The course is strictly an introduction:

Week 1 – brief history of medicinal chemistry, introduction to drug development process and regulatory approval
Week 2 – proteins (enzymes and receptors) as drug targets, enzyme inhibition, ligand-receptor binding theory
Week 3 – pharmacokinetics (compartment models, Vd, clearance)
Week 4 – metabolism, phase I, phase II, prodrugs, genetic variability
Week 5 – drug-target complementarity, drugs as part of chemical space, chemical libraries
Week 6 – lead discovery, screening, filtering hits by metrics/structural alerts/predicted PK, SOSA, natural products
Week 7 – lead optimization, functional group replacements, isosteres, directed libraries, peptidomimetics

The overall goal of the course is to get a student up to speed to watch a medicinal chemistry lecture (and maybe even ask a question at the end).
If you haven't taken a medicinal chemistry class in college or grad school, it seems to me that this would be a great (and free!) opportunity to learn a little. 

4 comments:

  1. Is this a free program or something?!?!

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  2. In related news, I am offering a web seminar (webinar!) on buggy-whip making. Sign up now!

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  3. The course is completely free. Check out the med chem class and others that are available on the edX platform (www.edx.org). edX is a joint initiative between Harvard and MIT, and a number of other institutions have signed on to create content for the platform.

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