Medicinal and Toxicological Chemistry I

The lectures are aimed at providing the student with background knowledge and understating: - of how drugs interacts with their biological targets - of how drugs get to their targets (ADMET) - of the main principles of drug design and development - of the issues in drug design (SAR and QSAR) - of some classes of drugs, such as antibacterial, antiprotozoal, antiviral and anticancer agents.

At the end of the course, the student is expected: - to know the principles and the strategies applied in the rational drug design; - to critically evaluate the chemico-physical properties and the structure-activity relationships for the considered classes of drugs - to gain the theoretical bases to understand how the pharmacokinetic profile influences the activity of a given drug - to reach lifelong learning skills involving a multifaceted knowledgebase on how the chemical properties impact on drug activity. These skills will be useful for further student's personal study and will allow a proper evaluation of the new drugs that will reach the market.