Hello, I'm professor Catharine Esterhuysen of the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science and
I'm here to tell you about the Applied Medicinal Chemistry program of the Faculty of Science.
So, I'm sure that the first question that comes up in your mind is "What exactly is Applied Medicinal Chemistry?"
Well, it's a broad, multi-disciplinary field that combines Chemical Sciences with
Biological Sciences, and focuses on Physiology, which is the study of how disease works,
from a cellular level, also looking at the chemistry from a molecular level,
building up through how cells work, how disease affects the body and also the environment.
Chemistry, as I'm sure you know by now, is the study of chemical compounds and how chemical
processes work, looking at the substances and their properties and how they all fit in
with the medicines that are used in Physiology. You're also going to do a little bit of
biochemistry in the programme, which is the application of chemistry to living organisms,
and you're going to do a little bit of botany and patent law just to understand the background
to some of the concepts that you're going to be using.
Why do you do it?
Well, it's in preparation for careers in the medical, pharmaceutical and allied health sciences industries, where what I mean by that is
companies for instance that make drugs and and also dietary supplements and so on.
So what does an Applied Medicinal Chemist do?
Well, there are a lot of things that they do because it's such a broad field.
So, one of the things that they can do is identify new pharmaceutically active compounds in natural sources,
so many plants but things like see kelp and fungi and so on.
They can also develop new pharmaceutically active compounds by using design principles from known drugs
and make related compounds that can be even better than the ones that already exist.
Or they can use a variety of different techniques to try a whole variety of different compounds
that can be completely new and in that way even better than what exists.
In order to do this, they need to have an understanding of the physiological and the
pathophysiological basis of disease; in other words, what is the origin of the disease and how does it work.
And, finally, they are also involved in testing of new drugs either in theoretical models or using cells or animals.
So, for instance, they can look at images like these.
What you see on the left with the fine lines are molecules or parts of an enzyme in
the malaria parasite plasmodium falciparum; and, as you know, how an enzyme works is that there
is a substrate that comes in and fits into the enzyme in a lock and key mechanism.
So what Applied Medicinal Chemists do, is they look at how different drugs can fit into the enzyme
(those are shown by the thick lines) and when they fit in extremely well then they can actually
block that enzyme and deactivate it, and in that way prevent the parasite from being able to
replicate, eventually leading to death of the parasite.
On the right-hand side what you see is cancer cells that have been treated with a fluorescent imaging agent.
At the top, you have a untreated cancer cell and you can see the blue part is the nucleus of the cancer cell and
at the bottom you see cancer cells that have been treated with the chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin,
and that blue part that's highlighted with the little yellow arrow is a cell cancer nucleus
that has become fragmented and destroyed, which then results in cell death of the cancer cell.
Applied Medicinal Chemists can also look at how natural compounds, for instance in this case garlic,
can be used to treat cancer and also just for general health benefits.
So, for instance, they've determined that two compounds within the garlic when they're cooked together
combine to form a compound called ajoene. And ajoene is known to fit into proteins inside
a cancer cell and that then block it and end up either killing off the cell or in this case
they can act as an anti-inflammatory, in a very similar way to the way aspirin works.
The advantage to this is that we know that cancer is prevented by this anti-inflammatory effect.
Applied Medicinal Chemists have also shown that the ajoene is very non-toxic,
so it doesn't have nearly as many side effects as many other chemotherapy drugs.
They also know how the ajoene kills cancer cells. How it works is that proteins within the cancer
cells interact with the ajoene and unfold as a result and those unfolded proteins can then
no longer replicate and that leads to cancer cell death. So eat your garlic - it's really important!
Knowing the kind of things that Applied Medicinal Chemists can do, what subjects
will you need to do at Stellenbosch University within the Applied Medicinal Chemistry programme?
Well, in your first year you start off with a very general BSc, broad-based so focus on Biology,
Chemistry, Maths and Physics and then a 'Science in Context' module that brings all
the subjects together in a real-world context.
At second-year level you start to focus in a little bit more on the Chemistry and the Physiology,
but you also do a little bit of biochemistry; and then you do Biometry,
which is how to look at and statistically analyze results from biological testing.
In third-year, you then focus primarily on
the Chemistry and the Physiology, but you do a little bit of Botany, in order to understand
the background to the plants that can be used for finding new drugs, and also bit about patent law
so that you can understand the legal implications of new drugs that need to be registered.
We recommend that you don't just stop at the end of your Applied Medicinal Chemistry degree,
but that you carry on to an Honours programme, either in Chemistry or in Physiology.
The reason for this is that you need an Honours level degree in order to be able to register as a Professional Scientist.
And, of course, if you feel at the end of your Honours year that you haven't learned enough,
we do also recommend that you continue with either a Masters
or then carry on to do a doctoral study under the supervision of an Applied Medicinal Chemist within
the Departments of Chemistry and Polymer Science or Physiology.
How can you get here, what do you need in terms of matric marks? So you need a matric certificate
with Afrikaans or English as your home language or first additional language, and you need to have a
mark of at least four for that. You need six in Maths and a four in Physical Science.
So, I hope to see you soon in the Applied Medicinal Chemistry programme, which will
prepare you for an exciting career in the medical, pharmaceutical or allied health sciences field.
If you want a little bit more information please go and have a look at these websites of
Applied Medicinal Chemists within the Departments of Chemistry and Polymer Science or Physiology,
and see what they do and the fascinating work that they are busy with. Also if you want some
more information you are welcome to contact me in the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science
or Professor Anna-Mart Engelbrecht who is at the Department of Physiology for further details.
Thank you for listening! I really hope to see you very soon in the Applied Medicincal Chemistry program
and I look forward to that. So thank you and goodbye.