MCMP Graduate Program - Medicinal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

These areas play important roles in drug and disease research. While, in the past, the design of new drugs has been largely empirical, the future trend is clearly toward more rational approaches based on genetic information and new biochemical knowledge. Characterization of genetic and biochemical changes associated with various states of disease is an essential first step in the process leading to drug design and development. The study of interactions between small molecules (e.g., substrates, drugs and xenobiotic chemicals) and macromolecules (e.g., enzymes, receptors and nucleic acids) constitutes a second important aspect of medicinal biochemistry research.

A thorough understanding of biochemical processes, on a molecular level, in healthy, as well as diseased, tissue is essential to the rational design and synthesis of new chemotherapeutic agents. Biochemistry also plays an important role in the design of new clinical diagnostic tests and in the development of fermentation procedures for the production of drugs, such as antibiotics. A complete characterization of the association between small molecule ligands and macromolecules includes a description of atomic interactions in structural and chemical-physical terms.

For all these reasons, a considerable amount of biochemical research is being conducted in the Department, at both basic and applied levels. Most departmental faculty members working in this area are members of the Purdue University Interdisciplinary Life Science Ph.D. program (PULSe) (formerly Purdue University Biochemistry and Molecular Biology "BMB" program).