Exercise-3

Pharmaceutical Chemistry

The department of pharmaceutical chemistry is involved in taking lectures in the subjects of general chemistry, organic chemistry, pharmaceutical / medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical analysis for the undergraduate students in the four year B. Pharm course.

We start our B. Pharm course with general chemistry and organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is a very important and valuable subject. It is the very essence of all life on our planet. The department is well equipped to introduce these fundamental subjects to the students so that a strong foundation is laid at the very beginning. This foundation serves as the building block for all other subjects in the entire B. Pharm course. An organic chemist by any other name could be a synthetic organic chemist, bioorganic chemist, natural product chemist, physical organic chemist, organometallic chemist, computational chemist, material chemist etc. among a host of super specializations. Chemistry is to biology what notation is to music and the department is all poised to make the students take a step towards chemistry.

The department is involved in teaching pharmaceutical analysis to the undergraduates. The curriculum includes extensive lectures and laboratory sessions to ensure that students can connect theory to practice and apply their theoretical knowledge gained. The field of pharmaceutical analysis is very dynamic and the curriculum ensures that the students are kept abreast with the latest development in this field. They are taught classical and modern analytical techniques including the application of sophisticated instruments like GC, HPLC, NMR, GC-MS, LC-MS etc. for drugs, pharmaceuticals and others.

The department has a postgraduate course, M. Pharm in Quality Assurance. The students are actively engaged in research activities under faculty guidance in varied research projects like- 

• analytical method development and validation of APIs and formulations, 
• standardization of herbal products using modern analytical techniques, 
• phytochemistry, natural product isolation from plants and their bioactivity,  
• solubility enhancement of APIs using multiple methods,
• development and synthesis of anticancer and anti-infective scaffolds using CADD and their bioactivity,
• synthesis of API impurities in collaboration with IPC, Ghaziabad
• formulation development of phytochemicals: conventional and novel delivery systems,

The department has successfully organized three workshops as part of the “Train the Trainer” series in the field of organic chemistry and pharmaceutical analysis for the teachers in pharmacy colleges in Mumbai. This has been a BNCP initiative and maiden venture to ensure that the department is undergoing quality improvement programs thus making more effective teachers to take up the daunting task of educating the current budding generation of pharmacists. The department strives towards publishing their research in good impact factor journals and also attends and presents their research work in many national and international forum i.e conferences and seminars. The department is actively involved in writing research projects and has received research project grants from University of Mumbai.