Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry

Chemistry in RCSI goes back a long way, the first Professor of Chemistry, James Apjohn, having been appointed in 1828.  Over the years the Department has kept pace with and in some cases has spearheaded College developments. 

It is now responsible for undergraduate chemistry teaching in the Schools of Pharmacy, Medicine and Physiotherapy as well as postgraduate teaching in the School of Pharmacy and the RCSI structured PhD programmes.

The Department is also very research active and has thriving research programmes in the following areas: 

• Organic synthesis/methodology underpinning drug discovery.
• Peptide-based antibiotic and anticancer agents, nanomedicines and drug delivery systems.
• Synthesis and pharmacological evaluation of metal-based anti cancer agents.
• New inhibitors of cyclooxygenase (see Fig) as anti-inflammatory agents.
• Drugs from natural sources.
• Computer-aided drug design targeting cardiovascular diseases (thrombosis, hypertension), infectious diseases (malaria, MRSA, HIV), neurodegenerative diseases and cancer (bone metastasis, skin cancer).
   

The prostaglandin PGG2 bound to the peroxidase site of cyclooxygenase