The Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy Department was established in 1987 to provide the required knowledge in areas like Organic, Analytical and Medicinal Chemistry in addition to Pharmacognosy and Natural Product Chemistry. The Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy department offers several undergraduate and graduates courses.
The Department contributes to the undergraduate study program by offering several courses including Organic, Analytical, Medicinal Chemistry courses as well as Pharmacognosy and Natural Product Chemistry. Other elective courses are also offered by the department including Drug Design and Synthesis, Advanced Medicinal Chemistry, Radiopharmacy, Natural Product Chemistry, Toxic Plants, Pharmaceutical Quality Control and others.
In the academic year 2000/2001, the department started offering Master Degrees in Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy which was later subdivided into two specialties, the Medicinal Chemistry specialty and the Pharmacognosy specialty. Students may earn an M.S. degree through graduate program that require 25 credit hours of course work in addition to 9 credit hours of research project, alternatively, student may obtain the degree after completion of 34 credit hour of course work and passing a comprehensive exam.
The faculty members in the department conduct research work in various areas related to pharmaceutical sciences. The research includes, drug design and synthesis, radiopharmacy, isolation and characterization of biologically active compounds, and drug analysis. The department offers continuous educational programs in cooperation with other departments. Also the department held seminars and workshops to update the knowledge of practicing pharmacists.
To achieve its objectives, the department is equipped with modern facilities and state of the art equipments, such as research and teaching labs, in addition to equipments such as NMR, GC/MS, FTIR, hydrogenator, HPLC, Flash chromatography system, chromatograms, Elemental analyzer, and a state-of-the-art in silico drug design lab equipped with latest versions of software including, Discovery Studio, AMBER, HyperChem, and GOLD.
The following subjects are being taught in the Department:
- Pharmaceutical organic chemistry perteinant to methods of preparation, use, stability, and metabolism.
- Medicinal chemistry of pharmaceutical organic compounds, focusing mainly on structuer activity relationships and drug design.
- Modern methods of drug analysis and spectroscopic identification of pharmaceutical organic entities.
- Natural products which have pharmacological effects including the methods of their extraction, composition, properties, and effectiveness.
- Phytotherapy focusing on safety and efficacy of herbal medicinal plants.
