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Department and Research Group of Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Photograph
AG Imming 2021, source: private

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Drug research in an academic setting ...

... is a bold undertaking, considering how much it needs - at the very least sufficient funding - to find a new active substance and develop it into something that could become a drug. No single academic research group is capable of developing a medicine. Even a single department in a pharmaceutical company can't. But the objective of synthesizing a "drug" motivates and helps to focus research.

In our group, we focus methodically on the synthesis of active compounds and their physicochemical characterization. For us, drug substance are: (1) real synthetics, which we trust to have an effect; they may be derived from natural products; (2) new potential metabolites that could contribute to the overall effect of drugs, (3) tailored stable organic radicals because they allow for diagnostic non-invasive methods; (4) plant compounds with interesting molecular scaffolds; and (5) near-infrared spectroscopy in pharmaceutical analysis (a collaboration with Bayer Bitterfeld GmbH).
Pharmacological activity and in vivo analysis are of course crucial. For this, we build partnerships with research groups that specialise in biological assays. Through this we ascertain that the test results are reliable and comparable to reference compounds. Cooperations have the nice "side effect" that part of the research can be performed elsewhere, thereby expanding horizons and expertise. The span of cooperation and thus travel destinations in recent years ranged from Halle (other working groups in our institute or in the faculty of medicine) to Jena, Munich, Italy, Finland and the United States.

A description of our specific research topics can be found on the following pages including the webpages of the postdoc and PhD students.

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