Medicinal Chemistry 2

The most important learning objective of the course is to transmit a rational approach to understanding the activity of drugs and their design.
The participants at the end of the course will be able to understand the relationships that link the chemical structure of a drug to its pharmacological activity through the study of the physico-chemical and stereo-electronic properties, and of the mechanism of action.
The aim of the course is also the study of the main chemical-pharmaceutical strategies useful for the optimization of the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties of drugs.
In particular, starting from the knowledge acquired in the course of Medicinal and Toxicological Chemistry 1, the course deals with the study of drugs active on the central and peripheral nervous system, cardiovascular agents, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamines, antiulcer and lipid-lowering drugs.

By the end of the course, students will have to know, for the different classes of drugs studied, how the prototype was discovered and the main steps through which the class was developed. Therefore, starting from the structure of a model compound, students should know how the structure can be modified in order to increase its activity and selectivity, optimize the pharmacokinetic properties and decrease toxicity. For each molecule studied, students should also be able to frame it correctly from the point of view of therapeutic application and mechanism of action, identify the essential pharmacophore and its mode of interaction with the target, if known, and they should be able to comment the structure-activity relationships.