BSc (Hons) Medicinal Chemistry Bachelor's degree at the University of Leeds

This module will provide a concise introduction to modern chemistry with an initial focus on a qualitative appreciation of electronic structure and how it determines the chemical and structural properties of matter. You'll also get an introduction to chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, organic structures and mechanisms and the chemistry of transition metal-ligand complexes.

Explore current chemical research in areas like sustainability and the ethical issues surrounding science. You'll develop skills in identifying and reading scientific literature, presenting science in different formats and for different audiences alongside transferrable skills like coding and self-reflection.

Develop your practical skills, conducting a range of experiments in our teaching labs. Through a series of lectures and workshops, you'll learn how to use a range of equipment and build up your experience in presenting scientific reports, data analysis and appropriate IT.

This module will build upon the 'Introduction to Modern Chemistry' module, exploring areas in structural, physical and inorganic chemistry. On completion of this module, you'll have an understanding of key sub-disciplines of chemistry including spectroscopy and electronic energy levels, IR and structure determination, periodicity and main-group chemistry, states of matter and phase behaviour and phase equilibria and chromatography. You'll also be able to appreciate how these ideas have relevance

Build a broad foundation of knowledge in organic chemistry. You'll cover the mechanistic basis and application of key organic reactions including nucleophilic and electrophilic substitution and addition reactions, eliminations, oxidation and reduction and key functional group interconversions.

Explore both physical and inorganic chemistry, including analysis and understanding of the kinetics and thermodynamics of chemical reactions, molecular energy levels and their origin and transition metal chemistry for materials.

Mathematical knowledge and skills are essential for the successful training of scientists and important for the professional life of scientists. This module will be taken by science students who do not have grade B or above in A level mathematics (or equivalent) to raise the mathematical competence of those students to that base level.

Build upon organic and inorganic chemistry learned in year 1, with focus on the structure and reactivity of organo-main group molecules and organo-transition metal complexes, and on the increasingly important application of these species as reagents and/or catalysts in synthetic organic chemistry.

Examine how the shapes of organic molecules impact their physical properties and reactivity. You'll be introduced to new classes of reactions such as pericyclic reactions and enols/enolates as reactive carbon-centred nucleophiles. You'll also cover heterocyclic chemistry principles which play a role in biological systems like DNA, enzymes and coenzymes.

Medicinal chemistry starts with an understanding of macromolecular drug targets. This module will provide a chemical introduction to pharmacology covering enzymes, receptors and ion channels as key drug targets and the different modes of binding and/or inhibition by small molecules. The module will also include some basic biochemistry, pharmacokinetics, and introduce concepts on recognition features in drug molecules such as pharmacophores and intermolecular bonding interactions.

Explore two fundamental parts of physical chemistry, namely chemical kinetics and thermodynamics. The module builds on the concepts of energy storage, states of matter and chemical change introduced in year 1. The module is concerned with the measurement and understanding of the rates and energetics of chemical reactions and illustrated using the context of societally important applications of chemical kinetics and thermodynamics, for example atmospheric chemistry and combustion.

Throughout this module, you'll develop skills to: (i) undertake a selection of experiments in the synthetic and physical chemistry laboratories that link to the theory you're learning and develop good laboratory technique (ii) build transferrable skills including data analysis and coding alongside an understanding of intellectual property, enterprise, sustainability and ethical issues.

Develop the skills to interpret NMR and mass spectra to determine structures of small molecules, building on skills developed in year 1. The module will also provide a theoretical basis for quantitative and qualitative analytical chemistry, in particular analysis by chromatographic methods such as GC and HPLC.

Gain a deeper understanding of some specialised areas within chemistry, including for example, polymer chemistry, molecular symmetry and spectroscopy and solution equilibria.

Explore material such as advanced synthetic methods including use of protecting groups and chemical technologies including flow chemistry and parallel chemistry. You'll study topics including reactive intermediates, solvent and solvent effects, process optimisation, bio-organic chemistry, synthesis, analysis and commercial application of polymers, and polymeric materials.

Learn core material such as advanced organometallics and catalysis, including homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, and study a subset of topics from options including for example: electrochemistry; f-block chemistry; supramolecular chemistry and properties and applications of inorganic solid-state materials.

Explore key aspects of the drug development process (including the processes required to optimise a drug candidate, and how drug candidates progress through late-lead optimisation to clinical trials) using examples from the pharmaceutical industry.

This research project is your chance to build essential skills in research, learning basic techniques in different subdisciplines that will transfer into your career. You'll review scientific literature in a particular area of research, applying and evaluating the gathered knowledge to your own project. Projects may be lab-based or non-lab-based/pedagogic.

This module will build upon concepts of enterprise introduced in earlier years, allowing you to further develop your team-working skills while learning how to exploit chemistry research. You'll construct a project plan for commercialisation of a chemistry research idea and present this to a panel of experts.

The explosion of information means that many jobs often require people to handle large datasets efficiently and quickly, yet graduates often don't have these core skills. In science, new insights often involve taking lots of data and bringing it together in a way that illuminates the problem. Throughout this module, you'll develop the core skills to efficiently handle large datasets.