Dr. Deniz M. Altawalbeh Head of  Department

The Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy offers pharmacy students the foundational concepts of drug mechanisms of action, structure-activity relationships, acid-base/physicochemical properties, and absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity profiles.

Medicinal Chemistry is a discipline focused on organic synthetic chemistry with broad goals on drug discovery and optimization. Pharmacognosy emphasizes on drug discovery from natural products, their occurrence in nature, extraction and identification. In addition, Phytotherapy course is intended to introduce pharmacy students to the concept of medical herbalism and complementary & alternative medicine.

The practical division provides the students with a solid foundation in the synthesis, characterization, extraction of drugs as well as natural products. The department enclosed five laboratories including Analytical Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Organic Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, and Instrumental Analysis.

Regarding the scientific research, the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy pursues interdisciplinary research such as design and chemical synthesis of drugs, drug analysis, natural products chemistry, biochemistry and drug targets, and computer-aided drug design and molecular modeling.