Part of The Alchemist's
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Maintained by Harry E. Pence, Professor of Chemistry, SUNY Oneonta, for
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Last Revised Dec. 17, 1998
There are several different career directions for chemistry majors who wish to specialize in pharmacy. Frank R. Gorga, (fgorga@bridgew.edu ) from Bridgewater State College has pointed out the following options
medicinal chemistry -- mainly organic chemistry a pplied specifically to the synthesis of new drugs. Most medical chem programs are based in schools of pharmacy. Students tend to get a more "rounded" education in drug development (than organic chemistry grad students), taking courses in other areas such as pharmacology, pharmaceutics, etc.
pharmacology -- how drugs interact with biological systems. Investigates the biochemical and physiological effects of drugs. Considered mainly a biomedical field, rather than chemical field. (Of course these distinctions are becoming more blurred all of the time!) A chemistry background is, in my opinion, fine preparation for graduate school in pharmacology. Pharmacology is taught both in schools of pharmacy and in schools of medicine; there are graduate programs based in both places.
pharmaceutics -- the "compounding" of commercial drugs. Taking the active compounds synthesized by medicinal chemists and characterized by pharmacologists and making "pills" (or othe r "dosage forms") that both effectively deliver the active compound and are stable "on the shelf". Grad programs in pharmaceutics are commonly found in pharmacy schools.
Robin Bogner <bogner@uconnvm.uconn.edu) from the Univ. of Connecticut also recommends that students who are thinking about careers in the pharmaceutical industry should include in their options the field of pharmaceutics. Pharmaceutics deals with the characterization of the physicochemical properties th at influence the release of drug from its dosage form and its absorption into the body. It also deals with development of new dosage forms -- tablets and capsules, yes, but also sustained release tablets, transdermal patches and targeted delivery systems to name a few.
A subdiscipline of pharmaceutics is pharmacokinetics which investigates the time course of drug action in the body. These are research and development areas that may interest students, but are often overlooked for the more ofte n cited fields of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology, which are also very fascinating fields to work in.
Also, check out the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Guide to Graduate Programs. This is available at most School of Pharmacy libraries. If you do not have a school of pharmacy on your campus, call AACP at 703-739-2330.
Timothy L. Pickering <timp@vt.edu> from Virginia Tech adds that he would advise students who, are interested in this type of work to investigate the emerging field of bioinformatics, as well as computational chemistry. Drug development in the next decade is going to be driven by computer modeling and by searching the exploding realm of information coming from the human genome project. Bioinformatics is a new discipline and only a few schools are offering degrees, but graduates can write their own ticket, at least for now. More information can be found on the DOE Web Page for the Human Genome Project, and from the Primer on Molecular Genetics . Prof. Pickering also suggests some useful print references: C&E News, Oct. 19, 1998, p. 29-33 and Today's Chemist, Sept. 1998, p.42-44 .
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