By Dan Nonte, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-4314
Posted 12-20-07
GREENSBORO, NC – The UNCG Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry now offers a doctorate in medicinal biochemistry with the first students to start the program in the fall.
Students will develop expertise in the biochemistry of drug design and function, and will specialize in one of three disciplines: computational chemistry, bioanalytical chemistry or drug synthesis. Graduates will be prepared for careers in biochemical research.
The program will help provide leaders for North Carolina’s growing biotechnology industry.
“We’re unique in that the medicinal biochemistry is being taught in a chemistry and biochemistry department with a strong emphasis on the chemistry of drug design and action” said Dr. Gregory Raner, the department’s director of graduate studies.
Raner predicted that the doctoral program would enroll five or six students in its first year and eventually grow to 30-40 students. The department already has 15 students in its chemistry master’s program and 15 in its biochemistry master’s program.
In addition to its economic development benefits for the state, the program will boost faculty research. “A PhD program provides faculty members with the opportunity to train students and the benefits of 2-3 years of labor from a trained researcher,” Raner said.
The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has 14 faculty members – 11 with research interests in biochemistry and eight with have experience in medicinal chemistry or the biochemistry of drug action. Two more faculty positions will be added in the next few years.
The department, which moved into a new building in 2003, has won major research and instrumentation grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Medicinal biochemistry is UNCG’s 24th doctoral program. For more information about the new PhD program, call the department at (336) 334-5714 or visit www.uncg.edu/che.
