UConn Pre-College Summer: Pharmacy – Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery

We have a summer in Storrs for you!

UConn Pre-College Summer Pharmacy: Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery course gives high school students the opportunity to experience the drug development process at a nationally ranked public university.

How will you make a difference?

Offered during Session 3 our Pharmacy: Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery course starts by introducing students to how pharmaceutical companies determine what disease they want to target. From there, students will work their way through the entire discovery process over the one-week course, ending with post-approval monitoring by the FDA. Along the way, we will answer a variety of specific questions, including the following:

• Lead compounds: what are they and where do they come from?
• What is medicinal chemistry and how is it used in the drug discovery process?
• What animal tests are required before a drug can be given to humans?
• What are drug-drug and drug-food interactions?
• What are clinical trials and how do they work?

Much of our discussion on these topics will revolve around the development of currently used drugs such as Lipitor (High Cholesterol), Januvia (Type II Diabetes), and Harvoni (Hepatitis C).

Students will have the chance to tour laboratory facilities at UConn dedicated to drug development and learn about the applications of specific instrumentation on campus. Students will also have the opportunity to perform in-lab experiments designed to introduce them to several different aspects of drug design and development.

Note: To be eligible to enroll in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery, students need to have some chemistry background.