Courses
The following are courses taught or coordinated by Dr. Moschitto:
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Foundations in Drug Discovery covers the important biochemical processes involved in the development of pharmaceuticals. This course provides an overview of the drug discovery process and provides a foundation for students interested in a career in drug discovery by applying both organic and biochemical principles. There are three parts to this course: (i) Understanding the drug discovery process (2) Common targets in drug discovery including receptors, kinases, GPCRs, ion channels, metabolic enzymes, and DNA; and (3) inhibitor design and evaluation including assay development, enzymology, PK/PD studies, and metabolism. This course is designed as an introductory graduate course or an advanced undergraduate course for students who have taken two semesters of organic chemistry.
This course is cotaught with Dr. Jun Wang.
Foundations is taught in the fall semesters of odd years (2025,2027…) and is open to graduate and undergraduate students. It is an elective in in the PharmD degree suggested for those students who are P2 or above. The only prerequisite is organic chemistry.
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The mission of the Pharmaceutical Chemistry course is to introduce students to the structure, properties, and analysis of pharmaceutical agents and metabolites as well as the fundamental techniques used for near patient testing and pharmacokinetic analysis. Topics include some of the basic concepts in medicinal chemistry as well as methods of pharmaceutical and biomedical analysis such as 1) the drug discovery and development process, 2) drug-target interactions, 3) review of organic functional groups found in drug molecules, 4) physicochemical properties related to drug action such as acid-base properties, equilibrium, and stereochemistry, 5) Chemistry of OTC inorganic drugs, 6) Effect of chemical structure on the metabolism of drug molecules, 7) Fundamentals of neurochemistry, and 8) Chromatographic (especially HPLC and LC-MS) analysis and spectroscopic identification of pharmaceutical agents, metabolites, and clinical samples.
Pharmaceutical chemistry is taught in the fall semester of students’ P1 year.
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This special seminar will cover basic organic chemistry techniques and safety procedures required for graduate work in an organic chemistry laboratory. It is intended for graduate students entering into research laboratories and for undergraduates with an interest in laboratory research. The technique subsection will cover common organic chemistry techniques including reaction set up, column chromatography, and other purification methods. The safety portion is specifically tailored to hazards that may present themselves in an organic chemistry laboratory and includes techniques such as dealing with specific hazardous chemicals and pressurized reactions.
This seminar is generally scheduled for the second Friday of September. Please email me for more information about future dates and location. It is open to any students or post docs who wish to attend.
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This course is for medical chemistry graduate students. Students can access past seminars by clicking here. You must be logged in with a Rutgers account to access the link.