Drug design and optimisation

This unit introduces you to pharmaceutical discovery and development, and the strategies used to optimise bioactive molecules into clinically useful drugs.

The unit will discuss the sources of bioactive molecules and the approaches used to identify small molecules that interact with a given target (hits); strategies used to optimise properties of hits to give molecules worthy of further development (leads); biological drugs; and the processes by which candidate drugs are evaluated. The unit will provide an introduction to computational modelling and discuss how computer-aided molecular modelling can be used in ligand-based and receptor-based approaches to aid drug development. Throughout the unit, you will be guided through a series of written research exercises, culminating in a comprehensive report on the design and optimisation of a contemporary drug.

Upon completing this unit, you will have a knowledge base from which you can critically evaluate the suitability of drug discovery and design approaches appropriate for different situations.