Medicinal chemistry is a multidisciplinary field of science involving organic chemistry, natural products biology, pharmacology and computational chemistry. The researchers in this area undertake the design and synthesis of new small organic molecules or improved the established drugs for pharmaceutical industries or markets. The chemical structure of new drugs is traditionally inspired from natural products or current drugs so called lead compounds. In recent years, computer aided drug design extensively utilized the drug design for diverse purposes. After designing the new compounds, they are sent to laboratory for synthesis followed by purification and characterization. Afterward, the synthesized compounds will be tested in vitro and in vivo against target biomolecules or tissues. Proving the appropriate activity, they will be sent for further investigations such as pharmacology and so on.
Our group involves three full time faculty members including one full professor and two associate professors, having diverse expertise in drug design and synthesis, synthesis of new heterocyclic compounds, organic synthesis methodology, and computational medicinal chemistry. The medicinal chemistry group has two active and well-equipped research laboratories. For the first time in Iran, our group established the new graduate program in the field of medicinal chemistry (MSc rank). This group currently accepts the BSc chemistry students for the graduate program in the field of medicinal chemistry.