Medicinal chemistry is the discipline at the interface of chemistry, pharmacology, and biology concerned with the design, synthesis, characterisation, and optimisation of biologically active compounds intended to become therapeutic agents. It addresses how molecular structure governs biological activity, encompassin…
Medicinal chemistry is the discipline at the interface of chemistry, pharmacology, and biology concerned with the design, synthesis, characterisation, and optimisation of biologically active compounds intended to become therapeutic agents. It addresses how molecular structure governs biological activity, encompassing structure-activity relationships, target binding, selectivity, potency, and the physicochemical properties that determine absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity. Core activities include the identification and validation of hits and leads, rational and computer-assisted molecular design, and the development of efficient synthetic routes to access new chemical entities and their analogues. Synthetic methodology is integral to the field, since reactions such as multicomponent and solvent-free transformations, glycosylation chemistry, and the construction of amide and heterocyclic scaffolds expand the accessible chemical space and enable structural diversification of candidate molecules. Natural products remain an important source of pharmacophores, and the isolation and evaluation of bioactive constituents from medicinal plants, including antimicrobial, antifungal, analgesic, antipyretic, and enzyme-inhibitory activities such as inhibition of alpha-amylase, illustrate the path from biological screening to lead characterisation. Medicinal chemistry thus connects organic synthesis, computational modelling, and pharmacological assessment to deliver safer, more selective, and more effective drugs and to elucidate the molecular basis of their action.
5 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 5 articles above have been cited 3 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Medicinal Chemistry, linking to each citing work.