What Medicinal Chemistry Can Achieve

Medicinal chemistry is the term used to describe the combination of sciences used to develop the pharmaceutical drugs that stock the shelves of our chemists and hospital departments and this is its main purpose and achievement. But it can take a long time to get from an active compound or organic molecule, to a drug that is licensed for use on patients in the UKs doctors surgeries and hospitals, and it is in these long processes that much can be learned about what the discipline of medicinal chemistry can achieve.

This discipline is all about drug discovery through the use of combinatorial chemistry and HTS (High-Throughput Screening) and achieving results that can be used to treat all manner of diseases and illnesses these processes are therefore absolutely essential in the ongoing quest for treatments and cures, and therefore the future of human health. It is these treatments and cures that those involved in medicinal chemistry aim to continue achieving with their research, studies and findings.

But as well as drug discovery, medicinal chemistry studies molecular interaction, in other words what happens between molecules in cells in proteins, carbohydrates, lipids and so on. These studies are often performed in order to recognise molecular interactions and then study the effects of these interactions to understand whether or not they can produce interesting and noteworthy results that are essential to the development of new drugs.

Findings from these and other important studies form the basis of much medicinal chemistry literature and it is often this literature that experts in the field turn to when they need information on a particular organic compound, to identify a molecular interaction and much more. Literature and case studies on the subject of medicinal chemistry are therefore invaluable to those in this industry, and their availability at a moments notice is also extremely important. Thanks to the internet and to organisations pulling libraries of information together on this discipline, it has never been easier for scientists to benefit from the extensive work of their fellows and to use past research to help with future studies.

As well as the results of the medicinal chemistry studies being published in journals and research papers, methods, strategies and targets are also discussed in such documents, and these pieces of information can help people to understand the direction of the discipline and what they need to be achieving. This knowledge-sharing practice helps to avoid repetition and move the process of drug discovery forwards at a steady pace.