I have been working as medicinal chemist for over 10 years.
Now I’m reading old reviews the title ‘THE ROLE OF THE MEDICINAL CHEMIST IN DRUG DISCOVERY —THEN AND NOW‘ Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 3, 853-862 (October 2004) | doi:10.1038/nrd1523.
I always ask to myself “why I wanted to be medicinal chemist ?” and “what I want to do?”
Of course I like chemistry, statistics, programming….But, It isn’t first reason.
The answer is that I want to contribute to the life of people.
So I want to rethinking about the role of medicinal chemist ;-).
The author said medicinal chemist are several skills are required…
….
These include a thorough knowledge of modern organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry, an understanding of the biology that relates to the target disease, an understanding of the pharmacological tests used in the project and sufficient knowledge of the factors that influence ADME characteristics of chemicals in vivo.
Furthermore, they should also have an understanding of clinical medicine that pertains to the target disease; knowledge of the regulatory requirements for related drugs; a current knowledge of competitive therapies, both in the market and under development by competitors; a thorough knowledge of the literature that is relevant to the target disease; familiarity with the many newer technologies available to facilitate drug discovery; and an entrepreneurial attitude in behaving as an innovator and inventor. Finally — and of crucial importance to the timely success of the project — the chemist must show superior interpersonal skills throughout the life of the project to interact effectively with colleagues from other disciplines to achieve project goals.
Hmm…I think it’s challenging, but I agree that opinion.
And recently it’s not rare to outsource making of compound library or synthetic intermediate.
So, I think medicinal chemist have to be not only scientist but also to be manager.
(About this point, my favorite perspective is Rethinking leadership in drug discovery projects.)
In this year, I had nice team member for my projects. I want to say thank you to the team member and other pharmaceutical or academic researchers.
Also I want to say thank you so much to my family !
I’m happy to work on pharmaceutical company as medicinal chemist. So, I’ll do my best next year.
Is life worth living? 