I will briefly introduce myself: I am a lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife.
In hold a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree (OAU), a Master of Science in Drug Discovery (UCL, UK), and a PhD in Computer-Aided Drug Design (RWTH, Germany).

I am passionate about drug discovery research in Nigeria and having spent several years abroad learning how new drugs are being discovered it has become paramount for to encourage all individuals in life/biological sciences to join in the effort to discover and develop drugs that meet our medical needs as a country and as a continent.

The job of discovering new drugs belong to:
1) graduates of Biochemistry,
2) graduates of Chemistry,
3) graduates of industrial chemistry,
4) graduates of microbiology,
5) graduates of medical laboratory sciences,
6) graduates of pharmacy
7) graduates of pharmacology
graduates of biotechnology
9) graduates of chemical engineering
10) graduates of computer science and others with programming experience
11) and so on, as many graduates that have received basic training in biological sciences and in computing.

One reason why Nigeria has not been able to produce his own drugs is mainly because we have failed as a country to leverage upon the uniqueness of these different fields of studies. Until we learn to work together, we are not going to achieve much.

To this end, I will be sharing few basic concepts to help individuals who want to know how new drugs are designed and discovered. While it will involve some level of chemistry, I will simply it and focus on the crux of the discussions. We will touch on different topics that I consider fundamental to the understanding of what drugs are, how drugs act, and how to harmonize our different areas of training to be able to have a full grasp of the discussion. I will appreciate your questions and contributions. Other experts in their different fields are welcome to contribute their unique points of view. And for those who are interested in actual drug discovery research you will be able to collaborate with me and do actual R& work. For those who want to be integrated into the research fabric in the country and who are interested in postgraduate training in drug design I shall be providing guidance as much as needed. From time to time experts from different aspects from around the world will be invited to contribute; at least their contributions will be shared here.

I hope we both have a swell time learning together.

Jide Olubiyi,
Drug Design and Medicinal chemistry Division
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry,
Faculty of Pharmacy,
Obafemi Awolowo Universit, Ile-Ife.

... ....... .

booked

wroskian:

You have successfully hit the right nail on the head with the quoted words above sir.

...following

Yes I find it humbling that the process of birthing new drugs involves experts from different fields. The early phase of the discovery process is dominated by experts from the fields of biology (biochemistry, microbiology, biophysics, biotechnology, pharmacology, physiology, etc), chemistry (chemistry, chemical engineering, industrial chemistry, pharmacyetc), to physics (and biophysics) and to computer scientists and engineers. And in the later phases you find scientists with clinical background. By the time we get underway in this discourse I hope more people will pick interest in joining hands to help Nigeria and African at large in providing innovative drug solutions to the diseases that are uniquely ours.

medchemoau:

Yes I find it humbling that the process of birthing new drugs involves experts from different fields. The early phase of the discovery process is dominated by experts from the fields of biology (biochemistry, microbiology, biophysics, biotechnology, pharmacology, physiology, etc), chemistry (chemistry, chemical engineering, industrial chemistry, pharmacyetc), to physics (and biophysics) and to computer scientists and engineers. And in the later phases you find scientists with clinical background. By the time we get underway in this discourse I hope more people will pick interest in joining hands to help Nigeria and African at large in providing innovative drug solutions to the diseases that are uniquely ours.

You are absolutely correct. The process of drug discovery is multidisciplinary.

I think there is an aspect of Chemistry called "Computational Chemistry" which is applicable in drug discovery. Using computational methods, it is possible to model molecules (in this case drug molecules) and optimize them to determine their physical and chemical properties using a computer software. In other words, you can predict the behavior of a drug substance without using a single chemical reagent or laboratory apparatus! I think we also have computational physics and computational biology too.

Let's see how this pans out.

Following...


Worked on some Schiff bases using computational chem tools for my project, and boy, it was interesting but a down side to it was lack of stable electricity and a system with a powerful OS.