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The Effectiveness of Using Three-Dimensional Visualization Tools to Improve Students’ Understanding of Medicinal Chemistry and Advanced Drug Design Concepts

Computer technology is an integral part of modern research. Most undergraduate pharmacy students are not aware of the use of these techniques in the drug design process. Understanding drug-target interactions plays a vital role in the drug design process, however, teaching the molecular basis of drug action is one of the major challenges we face in medicinal chemistry courses. The increase in the availability of three-dimensional macromolecule crystal structures and computer visualization software have provided better tools to study the drugs effect at the molecular level. This study evaluates the effectiveness of using three-dimensional macromolecule visualization tools in medicinal chemistry lectures on the students understanding of the molecular basis of drug action and drug design concepts. The different examples presented in this work are part of the teaching material that were developed to suite the learning objectives of the course.  In addition, the “macromolecular drug targets assignment” was introduced to the course in order to allow the students to have practical experience using the new in silico techniques. Two hundred seventy students were surveyed over the past five years, the result showed that the new teaching tools have increased students’ interest in medicinal chemistry and allowed them to develop better understanding of the effect of structural modification on compounds’ activity and structure activity relationship. In addition, it gave them an insight into the advanced methods used in drug design.  https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.4.11