Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design Flashcards
6 cards from real MPharm Master of Pharmacy practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design flashcards as text
Which chemical modification is applied to convert a carboxylic acid to an ester prodrug to improve oral bioavailability?
Answer: Esterification
Esterification masks the carboxylic acid, increasing lipophilicity and membrane permeability; the ester is then hydrolyzed in vivo to release the active acid.
In QSAR studies, which descriptor represents a drug's lipophilicity?
Answer: Log P
Log P (partition coefficient between octanol and water) is the standard QSAR descriptor quantifying lipophilicity of a drug molecule.
Which type of interaction is primarily responsible for the binding of catecholamine drugs to beta-adrenergic receptors?
Answer: Ionic and hydrogen bonding interactions
Catecholamines interact with beta receptors through ionic interactions between the amine group and aspartate residues plus hydrogen bonds via the catechol hydroxyl groups.
What is the significance of chirality in drug design as illustrated by thalidomide?
Answer: Different enantiomers can have drastically different pharmacological and toxicological effects
Thalidomide's R-enantiomer has sedative effects while the S-enantiomer is teratogenic, demonstrating that stereochemistry critically determines drug outcomes.
Which property of a drug is described by the term 'metabolic stability'?
Answer: The rate at which a drug is metabolized by hepatic enzymes
Metabolic stability refers to how quickly hepatic enzymes (primarily CYP450s) transform a drug, influencing its half-life and bioavailability.
The concept of 'soft drugs' in medicinal chemistry refers to compounds that:
Answer: Are designed to be metabolized predictably to non-toxic metabolites after exerting their effect
Soft drugs are active therapeutic agents designed to undergo controlled, one-step metabolism to predictably inactive metabolites, minimizing systemic toxicity.