PLEASE
NOTE: This web site will no longer be
available to students and faculty at universities other than Duquesne
University in the near future. If your
School or University uses this site, please have the faculty member in charge
of the course contact me at harrold@duq.edu
so that I can provide a CD containing updated versions of all of these
tutorials.
Index
Introduction
These tutorials
focus on the basic chemical concepts which govern drug action and are meant to
serve as a review for the sequence of Biomedical Science & Therapeutics
courses (PHBMS 422 - PHBMS 427). These concepts are first introduced in
the stand alone Medicinal Chemistry course (PHBMS 421) taught in the Fall
semester of the PIV year and should not be foreign to those who have completed
this course. It is the expectation of the author that each student
understands and masters these concepts since he/she is expected to apply these
concepts and understand how they relate to the drugs and drug classes discussed
in the BMS&T modules.
Over the
years, the author has noticed that some students often do not fully grasp
fundamental concepts such as acid/base chemistry, the "dreaded"
Henderson-Hasselbach equation, the importance of pH/pKa and ionization, the importance of both water and lipid
solubility, key functional groups and their importance to drug binding, stereochemical issues in drug action, and the basic types
of drug metabolism. As a result, two situations arise: (1) students must spend too much time relearning these
concepts prior to understanding how they apply to new agents and/or (2)
students tend to memorize information without totally comprehending the
reasons.
For these
reasons, a series of tutorials have been planned. This project was begun
in June 2001 and updates are posted as the tutorials are developed.
Previously available quizzes for functional groups and acid/base identification
have been updated and are included here. The author asks your patience as
the tutorials are developed. To date, seven tutorials are complete.
Topics for the tutorials will be developed in the order listed below. To
allow maximum student benefit, tutorials will be available as "works in
progress" as they are being completed and will be indicated as such.
Behavioral
Objective
The numbers in
parentheses following each of the objectives correspond to the seven tutorials
listed below and indicate which tutorial(s) address(es) or will address the objective. After reviewing
these tutorials, students should be able to:
Available
and Planned Tutorials
All
of these tutorials have been converted to DHTML language, meaning that unlike
the course specific ones, these do not require the Neuron plug-in. Additionally, they should be MAC accessible
via either Internet Explorer or Netscape.
Please note: These DHTML
versions REQUIRE that your internet browser allows “pop-ups”! Therefore, you may need to change your
settings to temporarily allowing pop-ups in order to view these tutorials.
Marc W.
Harrold, Ph.D.
Professor
of Medicinal Chemistry
Duquesne
University
Pittsburgh
harrold@duq.edu
(412)
396-6364
The URL for
this page is: http://www.home.duq.edu/~harrold/basic_concepts_index.html
Copyright
© 2001 Duquesne University
Last
Revised: 10/07/2009