Medicinal Chemistry

About this programme

No fees are charged for EU and EEA citizens, Swedish residence permit holders and exchange students. In the course Medicinal Chemistry, you gain insight into how new drugs are discovered and developed in practice – from molecular-level ideas to tested drug candidates. You work with the DMTA cycle (Design–Make–Test–Analyze) and learn how organic synthesis, biological assays and AI tools interact in drug development. You build on advanced organic chemistry and learn how reaction chemistry is used to synthesise medicinally relevant molecules, including heteroaromatics. You work with key concepts in medicinal chemistry, such as agonism and antagonism, structure-activity relationships, and receive a basic introduction to pharmacokinetics. A central theme throughout the course is the DMTA cycle (Design–Make–Test–Analyze). You practise formulating a design hypothesis and selecting a synthetic plan, testing compounds against a biological target, and using the data to guide the next optimization step. You are also introduced to selected commercial and open-source AI tools used in drug discovery, for example to predict physicochemical properties. Teaching combines lectures, seminars and group exercises where you develop problem-solving skills and work with scientific literature. You complete online diagnostic tests throughout the course to monitor your learning progress. In the laboratory module, you work case-based with in silico design and apply computational methods and molecular docking. You plan and carry out multistep syntheses, analyse products, and test activity in an en