Medicinal Chemistry - Higher Level

This unit was planned as part of the Chemistry IB Option D - Medicinal Chemistry scheme of work, and covers all the topics at HL. It would also be suitable for other schemes of work.

It includes 3 full PowerPoints, along with student versions to use as notes, which have spaces for the students to add in missing information and activities for them to complete.

It also includes exam questions for practice or assessment purposes

Topics covered are:

Taxol

- The Discovery of Paclitaxel
- Isolation of Taxol
- Structure of Taxol
- Semi-synthetic production of Taxol
- Clinical use of Taxol
- The use of chiral auxiliaries to produce one enantiomer of Taxol
- Confirmation of the purity of a single enantiomer drug
- Thalidomide

Nuclear Medicine

- The use of radionuclides in medicine
- Types of ionising radiation
- Radiotherapy
- Radioactive Decay
- Targeted alpha therapy
- Boron neutron capture therapy
- Use of gamma emitters in radiotherapy
- Radiodiagnostics
- Positron Emission Tomography
- Use of Technetium-99m
- Half life and decay constant calculations
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Drug Detection and Analysis

- Worked example of the identification of aspirin by NMR, IR and Mass Spectrometry
- Worked example of the identification of an unknown compound from NMR, IR and Mass Spectrometry
- Extraction and purification of organic products
- Worked example of hormone concentration using partition coefficients
- How polarity affects the partition coefficients
- Raoult´s Law
- Fractional Distillation
- Drug detection in sports
- Drug detection in forensic science
- Chemistry of breathalyzer tests
- HPLC and Gas chromatography