Medicinal chemistry is the scientific discipline that combines organic chemistry, pharmacology, and biology to discover, design, synthesise, and optimise chemical compounds for use as therapeutic agents. It is concerned with understanding how molecular structure relates to biological activity, and with refining cand…
Medicinal chemistry is the scientific discipline that combines organic chemistry, pharmacology, and biology to discover, design, synthesise, and optimise chemical compounds for use as therapeutic agents. It is concerned with understanding how molecular structure relates to biological activity, and with refining candidate molecules to improve potency, selectivity, safety, and pharmacokinetic properties such as absorption, metabolism, and stability. The field spans the identification of bioactive compounds, the elucidation of structure-activity relationships, and the chemical strategies used to build and modify drug-like molecules. A major source of leads is natural products, and medicinal chemistry frequently investigates the bioactive constituents of plants and other natural sources, evaluating extracts and isolated compounds for activities such as analgesic, antipyretic, antimicrobial, antifungal, and enzyme-inhibitory effects, including inhibition of metabolic enzymes like alpha-amylase. Synthetic methodology is equally central, encompassing the efficient construction of pharmacologically relevant scaffolds, for example through multicomponent reactions to access sulfonyl amidines, mild and solvent-free transformations, and the synthesis of glycosyl amides and other carbohydrate derivatives. Safety assessment, including acute and subacute toxicity evaluation of candidate substances, is an integral part of translating chemistry into viable medicines. By linking molecular design to biological function, medicinal chemistry underpins the development of new drugs and the rational improvement of existing ones across therapeutic areas.
6 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 6 articles above have been cited 20 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Medicinal Chemistry, linking to each citing work.