Undergraduate Student Perspectives on Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery Research

RecommendationsT he education of future scientists and healthcare professionals is shaped through many avenues, but immersive research experiences offer unique opportunities that expose trainees to the realities of the scientific process.Within medicinal chemistry and drug discovery laboratories, students encounter a uniquely interdisciplinary environment where chemistry, biology, pharmacology, structural biology, and translational medicine converge toward a common objective: addressing disease by making new medicines. 1,2or many undergraduate students, these experiences do more than offer training and exposure to highly sought-after skills, but also fundamentally reshape how they think about science and their future careers. 34]5 As is generally the case, undergraduate research experiences can be transformative for students in terms of offering cutting edge knowledge, practical skill sets, and mentoring leading to deepening enthusiasm and proficiency for a given interest. 6ur research group is somewhat unique in that we pursue medicinal chemistry research in a chemistry department and often are sought after for research experience by first-or second-year undergraduate students interested in medicine, engineering, pharmacy, chemistry, and other areas.With the input from ten undergraduate researchers from the past several years, we sought to further explore how medicinal chemistry and drug discovery research provided unique lessons and aided in the advancement of their individual career paths.The reflections presented here from undergraduate and early stage trainees reveal several recurring themes regarding how exposure to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery research influences scientific identity and professional trajectory.Many students sought out research with broad scientific curiosity in medicine or disease-focused biology, particularly cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, but lacked exposure to how therapeutics are developed in a practical sense.While many students had interests in applications of chemistry, which seems worthwhile to note as our laboratory is in a chemistry department, many students desired to make impacts to diseasefocused research with tangible impacts to health sciences.Participation in drug discovery research helped bridge these conceptual divides by demonstrating how molecular-level understanding can inform drug design and clinical translation.Others viewed chemistry, biology, engineering, or medicine as largely distinct disciplines prior to joining the laboratory environment.Research experiences enabled appreciations of the collaborative nature and values of modern biomedical science that is central to enabling new therapies.