Medicinal Chemistry

The mission of the department of Medicinal Chemistry is to conduct basic research in chemistry and biochemistry as it relates to drug discovery, to teach these principles in the professional and graduate programs, and to provide service to the scientific community.

The Department of Medicinal Chemistry is located in the College of Pharmacy, and is an integral part of the University of Florida’s Health Science Center. Medicinal Chemistry is a unique blend of the physical and biological sciences. The scope of the field is sufficiently broad to give students with many different science backgrounds a rewarding and challenging program of study. Areas of active interest include drug discovery, organic synthesis of medicinal agents, natural products chemistry, prodrugs, topical drug delivery, peptide chemistry, molecular modeling, drug metabolism and molecular toxicology. The department has excellent facilities for research in the major areas of Medicinal Chemistry and faculty have been highly successful in attracting extramural research support for the past several years. The Department faculty members are involved in teaching, research and service.

Medicinal Chemistry areas of research in drug design, marine natural products and toxicology are a unique blend of the physical and biological sciences. The scope of the field is sufficiently broad to give students with many different science backgrounds a rewarding and challenging program of study. Areas of active interest include drug discovery, organic synthesis of medicinal agents, natural products chemistry, prodrugs, topical drug delivery, peptide chemistry, molecular modeling, drug metabolism and molecular toxicology.

Faculty Spotlight

Raymond J. Bergeron, Ph.D.Emeritus Graduate Research Professor

Investigating ways to better treat iron-overload diseases, Bergeron, who holds 119 patents, currently has two drugs in clinical trials with Genzyme. One drug is used for treatment of liver cancer. The other was developed for the treatment of children with a rare anemia disease in which iron builds up, causing an overload that cannot be effectively eliminated. Iron overload can lead to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), liver cancer, one of the most difficult and insidious forms of cancer to manage, said Bergeron. The therapeutic choices for this disease are few, and generally the success rate is very poor. A Phase I/II clinical trial is in progress at five U.S. centers to assess the safety, tolerability and efficacy of DENSPM in hepatocellular carcinoma.

UF medicinal chemists modify sea bacteria byproduct for use as potential cancer drug

University of Florida pharmacy researchers have modified a toxic chemical produced by tiny marine microbes and successfully deployed it against laboratory models of colon cancer.

Writing today in ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, UF medicinal chemists describe how they took a generally lethal byproduct of marine cyanobacteria and made it more specifically toxic — to cancer cells.

When the scientists gave low doses of the compound to mice with a form of colon cancer, they found that it inhibited tumor growth without the overall poisonous effect of the natural product. Even at relatively high doses, the agent was effective and safe.

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College of Pharmacy : University of Florida