UConn Pre-College Summer: Pharmacy – Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery 2026

UConn Pre-College Summer: Pharmacy – Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery

UConn Pre-College Summer provides high school students the opportunity to learn at a nationally ranked public university. With our course offerings, students focus on one field of their choice by attending classes taught by UConn professors. Students also participate in exploratory workshops and social activities designed to assist the transition to college.

The UConn Pre-College Summer Pharmacy: Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery course allows high school students to learn about drug development at a nationally ranked public university.

What will you do to make a difference?
Our Pharmacy: Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Discovery course, which is offered during Session 3, begins by explaining how pharmaceutical companies decide which diseases to target. Following that, students will work their way through the entire discovery process over the course of one week, culminating with FDA post-approval monitoring. We will answer a variety of specific questions along the way, including the following:

What are lead compounds and where do they come from?
What is medicinal chemistry, and how does it help with drug discovery?
What animal tests must be performed before a drug can be administered to humans?
What is the difference between drug-drug and drug-food interactions?
What exactly are clinical trials, and how do they operate?

Much of our discussion on these topics will center on the advancement of currently available drugs such as Lipitor (High Cholesterol), Januvia (Type II Diabetes), and Harvoni (Hepatitis C).

Students will have the opportunity to tour UConn’s drug development laboratory facilities and learn about the applications of specific instrumentation on campus. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in in-lab experiments that will introduce them to various aspects of drug design and development.

Students must have some chemistry background in order to enroll in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery.