Overview: In this
field study students follow the drug development process using the work of a typical NC
pharmaceutical company.
Students learn that shape matters in drug design and use a variety of
tools to learn how to modify a chemical's shape.
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a serious disease that
affects more than 42 million people worldwide. A NC company is
working to develop a drug to target and regulate the neuronal nicotinic
receptors (NNRs) in the brain to help patients with MDD. Students will become scientists for
the day and will engage in the discovery, design, and development of a
selective therapeutic drug for MDD. They
will first learn about MDD and the drug development pipeline. They will be introduced to an antidepressant candidate drug and will create a sellable trade
name for it. Students will learn about
a drug company’s research.
After a brief background on receptors and ligand specificity and
binding, students will engage in a hands-on activity where they will manually manipulate foam ligands with receptors to learn that shape and conformation
matter for a molecule to bind to a receptor.
This activity allows students to transition into learning about the
concept of chirality where as a group they will work to manually build
molecules that demonstrate chirality using molecular modeling kits. Subsequently, students will learn how to use
a micropippettor to perform a wet-lab experiment showing how each enantiomer of
a candidate drug reacts differently to a solution containing its NNR
target. After a full morning of
learning, students will break for lunch.
The second part of the day will begin with students
analyzing scientific data comparing the effectiveness of the racemic mixture of
a compound and its two enatiomers in studies involving animal models. Students will analyze the data and make an
educated argument for which drug they think scientists should
pursue. We will have a climatic reveal
of which form of the drug is indeed pursued along with a summary of
current clinical trials. Lastly,
students will learn that companies are trying to design a more effective
antidepressant drug. In order to design
better drugs students will learn about functional groups and how certain groups
can confer different properties to molecules.
Students will use MOPAC, a computational chemistry engine hosted at the NC School of Science and Math, to model
novel molecules and examine their properties in virtual space. They will finally see how the make-up of a
molecule dictates its shape and ultimately its function.
Activities Featured:
* Perform internet research on major depressive disorder; report their findings to the class
* Create a sellable trade name for a new antidepressant
candidate drug
* Manipulate large foam receptors and ligands learning that the
shape of a molecule ditates whether a ligand will bind or not
* Build molecules that demonstrate chirality using molecular
modeling kits
* Learn how to use a micropipettor
* Perform a wet-lab experiment showing how each enantiomer
of a candidate drug reacts differently to a solution containing its
receptor target
* Analyze a scientific paper and make an educated argument
for which drug they think scientists should pursue
* Computational design and model novel molecules to examine
their properties in virtual space
Science Concepts
Covered: receptor and ligand binding, chirality, racemic mixtures and
enantiomers, organic functional groups, chemical bonding and molecular
geometry.
Student Profile:
This unit is appropriate for students in high school Standard, Honors, or AP
Chemistry. The content is sufficiently
flexible to accommodate students from entry-level to highly advanced.
Chemistry Standard
Course of Study Objectives addressed: 1.01-1.03, 2.03, 2.07, 3.01, 5.06