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General Information and Guidelines for Postgraduate Students
Within the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, four main areas of research
activities are available:
1.
Drug Metabolism and
Pharmacokinetics
2.
Drug Analysis and
Quality Control
3.
Medicinal Plant Research
4.
Medicinal Chemistry
Research including Synthesis and Structure-Activity Relationship Studies.
Any one admitted
for M.Sc., M.Phil., or Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry can undertake research
in any of these areas.
Registration for Courses:
At the beginning of each Semester, students are required to register for the
courses they will take. The forms for registration should be collected from the
Postgraduate School. Students are enjoined to consult the current Postgraduate
Handbook for the list of courses. Candidates whose first Degree is not in
Pharmacy are required to take supplementary courses at the undergraduate level.
These courses are CPA 404, PHC 401 and PHC 508 indicated on the Time-table.
Examination
All courses are to be examined at the end of the Rain Semester except for
Seminar (PHC 605) and Practical Courses (PHC 604) which are by continuous
assessment.
Research Project
By the beginning of the Rain Semester, students are expected to have interacted
with the lecturers in their area of interest for a possible research topic.
This is, however, subject to the approval of the Departmental Postgraduate
Committee. It is advisable the projects are started as soon as they are
assigned.
For further information, please contact the Head of Department or the
Secretary, Room 139.
Hope you have a fruitful time of study with us.
M.Sc./M.Phil. PHARMACEUTICAL CHEMISTRY
COURSES
PHC 601:
Chemistry of Natural Products and Newer Synthetic Drugs. (4 Units) - 40
Lectures
1.
Synthetic methods in
Organic and Medicinal Chemistry with their practical applications:
- Oxidation methods
- Reduction methods
- Organometallics, organoboranes, Wittig reaction, alkylation and dealkylation,
electrocyclic reactions etc.
(8 lectures)
2. Heterocyclic Chemistry:
Review and newer developments in heterocyclic chemistry-one, two and three
hetero atoms, illustrating with examples from natural
products. (4 lectures)
3. Mechanism of action of drugs and drug design:
- Stereochemical considerations
- Drug-receptor interactions
- Design of active-site-directed inhibitors
- Strategy of drug design and biological correlation
(8 lectures)
4
(a) Recent developments
in the Chemistry of Pharmacodynamic agents-analgesics, asthmatics,
tranquilizers, oxytocics, hypoglycaemics, prostaglandins, etc.
(8 lectures)
(b)
Recent developments in the Chemistry of Chemotherapeutic agents-antimalarials,
sulphonamides, antibiotics, antihelmintics, antitrypanosomiasis,
antischitosomicides, anticancer and antiviral
drugs. (8 lectures)
5. Advanced treatment of steroid and hormonal steroid chemistry.
(4 lectures)
PHC
602:
Biopharmaceutics and relevant Pharmacokinetics (3 units) 36 lectures
1.
Physicochemical factors affecting absorption, distribution, and reliability of
drug responses:
Hydrogen bonding
Partition
coefficient
Ionisation
Oxidation-reduction potential
(5 lectures)
2.
Biochemical transformation of Drugs:
(a)
Hepatic microsomal transformations, Enzyme systems and pathways involved in
oxidation, reduction, hydrolysis and conjugation.
(b)
Non-microsomal metabolic transformations: Oxidation, reduction and conjugation.
(c)
Miscellaneous metabolic transformations.
(d)
Mechanism of transformation of specific groups of drugs undergoing the reactions
mentioned above. Current concepts literature review.
(5 lectures)
3.
Methods of metabolic studies:
(a)
Protocols for in vivo and for in vitro studies
(b)
Preparation of tissue homogenates.
(c)
Preparation of pure oxidases (e.g. N-oxidases)
(d)
Specific examples of isolation, identification, and characterisation of
metabolites and/or metabonates.
(e)
Analytical metabolic chemistry of specific groups of drugs.
(f)
Biochemical methods of identifying the enzyme systems catalysing transformation;
Use of specific inhibitors and indicators.
(6 lectures)
4.
Pharmacokinetics.
(a)
Pharmacokinetics of constant rate intravenous infusion.
(b)
Pharmacokinetics of multiple dosage regimen
Drug accumulation ration
Steady state
concentration
Loading and maintenance doses
Assessment of pharmacokinetic parameters.
(c)
Compartmental Analysis.
Simple compartmental analysis
Multiple compartmental analysis
Apparent volumes of distribution.
(d)
Non-linear Pharmacokinetics:
Characteristics
Kinetic profiles.
(e)
Urinary Excretion Kinetics
Determination of overall
Elimination rate constant
Estimation of half-life.
(f)
Metabolite kinetics:
Flip-flop half-life
Kinetics of metabolite elimination.
Practical consequences.
(14 lectures)
5.
Bioavailability of drugs:
(a)
Methods of determination with emphasis mainly on the pharmacokinetics methods.
(b)
Determination of bioequivalence of drug products including the consequences of
such studies.
(6 lectures)
PHC 603:
Physicochemical Methods of Drug Analysis (4 units) 40 Lectures.
1.
Isolation, separation and purification techniques in pharmaceutical analysis (an
advanced treatment)
(a)
Extractive processes. Ion-pair extraction
(b)
Various distillation procedures. Practical and molecular distillation
(c)
Electrophoresis.
(d)
Adsorption and partition chromatography - Column chromatography; paper and thin
layer chromatography, (TLC); gas chromatography (GC) and high pressure liquid
chromatography (HPLC); ion-exchange chromatography. Analytical applications.
(8 lectures)
2.
Molecular spectrophotometry (an advanced treatment)
(a)
VIS and UV absorption spectrophotometry. Colorimetry.
Qualitative
control of purity and determination of medicinal substances. Determination of
mixtures, Calibration curves method, Differential spectrophotometry.
Spectrophotometric titrations. Structural analysis.
Spectrophotometric
studies of ionic equilibra.
(b)
Infrared spectrophotometry (IR). Qualitative uses interpretation of infrared
spectra. Quantitative analysis of drugs by IR.
(c)
Raman spectrophotometry and its analytical application
(d)
Spectrofluorimetry. Theoretical principles; instrumentation; analytical
factors; application in drug analysis.
(7 lectures)
3.
Atomic emission and absorption spectrophotometry
Emission spectra. Flame photometry and its analytical application. Atomic
absorption spectrophotometry and its analytical
applications. (2 lectures)
4.
Other spectroscopic methods:
(a)
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy an advanced treatment.
(b)
Introduction to Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) spectroscopy
(c)
Mass spectrometry (MS), and combined Gas-Liquid Chromatography Mass
spectrometry (GLC/MS).
(10 lectures)
5.
Optical methods of analysis:
Optical rotatory dispersion (ORD) and circular dichroism (CD) and their
analytical application.
(3 lectures)
6.
Photochemistry:
Basic principles of photochemistry. Reactions of excited species:
photo-dissociation, isomerisation, photochemical reduction and oxidation.
Investigation of photo degradation of
drugs. (2
lectures)
7.
X-ray methods of analysis:
Theoretical considerations. X-ray diffraction. Qualitative analysis by X-ray
diffraction techniques. Quantitative analysis based on X-ray diffraction
technique.
Single crystal
diffraction.
(2 lectures)
8.
Electrochemical methods:
(a)
Potentiometry. Potentiometric titrations Redox and precipitation titrations.
Specific ion electrodes.
(b)
Conductimetry. High frequency titrations (Oscillometry).
(c)
Polarography and amperometric titrations.
Theoretical
considerations. Polarographic instrumentation and methods of analysis.
(6 lectures)
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