Overview
What is Medicinal Chemistry?
Medicinal chemists are the creative talent behind the modern pharmaceutical industry. As well as being expert chemists, they have extensive knowledge of molecular design, drug synthesis and the biological function of drugs.
Medicinal Chemistry: The course for you?
Yes, if your dream is to design and prepare new drugs, if you want to understand the biological mechanisms by which they operate, if you have a natural flair for chemistry and are interested in developing the skills and expert knowledge relevant to the pharmaceutical industry.
Graduate skills and career opportunities
As with graduates in other branches of chemistry, the skills acquired during this degree programme will make you highly attractive to employers in a wide variety of areas. In addition to the pharmaceutical industry itself, business, finance, administration, publishing, and teaching are all possibilities that are open to you as a medicinal chemistry graduate. Most students progress to postgraduate studies in the School or other top tier institutions abroad.
Your degree and what you’ll study
You will study foundation courses in chemistry, biology and mathematics in the first two years.
Third year
In third year, the course will provide the fundamentals of medicinal chemistry in drug design and development while maintaining overlap with the Chemistry degree esp. in organic
chemistry. Lectures are complemented by laboratory experiments, where you will gain experience in more sophisticated preparative chemical techniques and will also be able to carry out your own spectroscopic analyses and computer-based modelling. You will also be able to choose two Trinity electives in other areas.
Fourth year
In fourth year, in addition to core chemistry modules, you will cover the medicinal chemistry of the cardiovascular and central nervous systems, combinatorial chemistry and drug delivery, as well as computational medicinal chemistry and modern analytical methods. Case studies in medicinal chemistry (focusing on specific diseases or drug types) will also feature in your programme.
Practical work in the final year will consist of a Capstone project. This may be carried out either in Trinity under the supervision of a member of staff, in a chemistry department at an overseas university, or in a commercial laboratory.
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Study abroad and internship opportunities
The School of Chemistry has exchange agreements with many universities and research institutions in Europe and North America where Medicinal Chemistry students carry out their final year Capstone research projects from September to December or undertake internships. Individual groups in the School offer summer internships.
