Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews On Jeopardy!, the general-knowledge quiz show, the game’s miscellaneous category is titled “Potpourri”. This month’s book reviews are a “potpourri” for readers. Do you need a reference book about all of science? Check out the second edition of Encyclopedia of Scientific Principles, Laws, and Theories by Robert E. Krebs, reviewed by both a biologist and a chemist. Perhaps you are in the market for a comprehensive overview of general chemistry. Billy Adam Gottlieb’s Holy Holmium! Complete General Chemistry in 150 Pages promises a money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied with its coverage. In the textbook department, Medicinal Chemistry: An Introduction by Gareth Thomas is an updated offering in a niche category. Finally, Arieh Ben-Naim’s Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced to Plain Common Sense may be just what you need to solidify your understanding of the topic. And the question is: What are September book reviews? Medicinal Chemistry: An Introduction, Second Edition by Gareth Thomas John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.: West Sussex, U.K., 2008. 646 pp. ISBN 978-0470025987 (paper). $60. Wiley-Interscience: New York, 2008. 646 pp. ISBN 978-0470025970 (hardcover). $160 reviewed by Kevin M. Bucholtz
Gareth Thomas has recently published the second edition of his Medicinal Chemistry: An Introduction. His intention in writing this book, introducing students to medicinal chemistry after the successful completion of organic chemistry, is very well targeted. I could easily envision incorporating this book into a junior or senior level course in medicinal chemistry. As a bio-organic chemist, I expected this to be like many medicinal chemistry books: heavy in the traditional topics of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME), pharmaco kinetic profiles, and discussions of compounds based upon their target and mode of action. Although all of these important topics are thoroughly introduced, I was pleasantly surprised by the strong focus on the material from more of an organic chemistry perspective and the presentation of the material so that it can be easily understood without extensive experience in biochemistry or molecular biology. If you are looking for a textbook that focuses on pharmacokinetics and drug administration, this may not be your best choice. If you are looking for a book that puts the chemistry, specifically the organic, into medicinal chemistry, this is the one. Each chapter offers a comprehensive selection of problems, with answers included in the back of the book. Some problems are worked out while others simply refer back to the section in the chapter. These end-of-chapter problems make this book very appealing for the classroom setting. Because this book would be used for upper-level undergraduates, I believe that references in each chapter may have been applicable. At the end of the book, there are Selected Further Readings. This is a start, but references, even a few specific review articles, would be useful for 1036
students as they develop their proficiency in reading technical papers. This second edition is a hefty 600+ pages. It varies from the first offering in the fact that Chapter 2 has been expanded into three new chapters covering : 1. Structure—Activity and Quantitative Structure Relationships; 2. Computer-Aided Drug Design; 3. Combinatorial Chemistry. Two completely new chapters have been added: Drugs from Natural Sources and Drug Development and Production. All of these additions bring the material up-to-date and address many of the major advances. The book begins with an introductory chapter that looks at drugs, their action, and discovery. This chapter establishes all of the fundamentals, and supports these ideas nicely by including plenty of chemical structures and thorough diagrams of important processes such as drug discovery and ADME. Chapters 2–6 focus on drug design and novel compound isolation. A logical approach is taken by examining stereochemistry, structure, and solubility. The book then moves into very impressive sections on computer-aided drug design, combinatorial chemistry, and drugs from natural sources. These chapters illustrate drug design and identification from a variety of useful perspectives to exemplify the different approaches currently being employed. The next four chapters (7–10) describe these standard topics: membranes, receptors, enzymes and enzyme kinetics, and nucleic acids. Not intending to be exhaustive, these chapters introduce the topics and provide sufficient information and examples. When discussing drug “action” or “mechanism”, Thomas illustrates the chemical mechanism complete with double-headed arrows showing the movement of electrons. As someone who stresses mechanisms in organic chemistry lectures, I find these drug mechanisms very refreshing. The Pharmacokinetics and Drug Metabolism chapters balance adequate text, useful diagrams, and important mathematical equations and derivations. The Drug Metabolism chapter contains an extensive four-and-a-half page chart that examines the Phase I metabolic reaction of drugs and identifies functional groups and their metabolism. Although important, the next two chapters seem to lack a good place in the book. Complexes and Chelating Agents (Chapter 13), and Nitric Oxide (Chapter 14) are well written, but seem awkwardly placed into the text. Chapter 13 focuses on many aspects of bio-inorganic chemistry and introduces the role of metals and even covers a little molecular orbital theory. Though the discussion on Cisplatin is interesting, this chapter had so much background material in inorganic chemistry that it lacks many of the detailed examples found in other chapters. Unfortunately, I had similar sentiments about the Nitric Oxide chapter. It, too, was well written but seemed out of place in the rest of the book.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 86 No. 9 September 2009 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • © Division of Chemical Education
Chemical Education Today edited by
Cheryl Baldwin Frech University of Central Oklahoma Edmond, OK 73034
The book ends with two very strong chapters. Chapter 15, An Introduction to Drug and Analogue Synthesis, is a thorough crash course on the art of organic synthesis. The introduction of stereochemistry through the chiral pool, chiral auxillaries, and chiral catalysts is well done. The disconnective approach of retrosynthesis provides readers with a nice perspective of the creativity that can occur in designing a synthesis. Chapter 16 completely covers Drug Development and Production from scale-up to testing and clinical trials. This final chapter could easily be expanded and divided into at least two chapters. The challenges of scale-up, green techniques, and working in an industrial setting could easily fill the first chapter. The second chapter could focus on the approval and patent process plus all of the steps in clinical trials. Because specific regulations for drug development vary greatly from country to country, this final chapter may be too difficult to cover completely. Even so, expansion of this final chapter would paint a very nice picture of the complete process of drug development.
Overall, this second edition of Medicinal Chemistry: An Introduction is a very well written book. The components added in this edition complement the initial work very nicely. My few criticisms reflect more personal preferences than egregious problems that threaten the book’s effectiveness. The book is a pleasure to read, and it made me consider how I would use it to design a medicinal chemistry course. Supporting JCE Online Material http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Sep/abs1036.html Keywords Full text (HTML and PDF)
Kevin M. Bucholtz is a member of the Department of Chemistry, Mercer University, 1400 Coleman Avenue, Macon, GA 31207;
[email protected].
© Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 9 September 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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