VCE Chemistry

Pharmaceutical Science Incursion

On Wednesday 15th May, our Year 11 and Year 12 Chemistry students participated in an incursion by Monash University, Department of Pharmaceutical Science and Pharmacy. 

Two PhD candidates, Josh and Julia, presented a workshop on functional groups and chirality*.

This topic is introduced to students in Unit 2 of the chemistry course, then followed up in more depth within Unit 4 Chemistry. In this workshop, students were introduced to different functional groups and chirality in the context of medicines.

Through power point animations and hands on activities, they discussed the role functional groups play in drug delivery and targeting and they witnessed how the chirality of a medicine molecule affects its ability to bind to receptors in the body.  Josh and Julia also discussed the Pharmaceutical Sciences course and life at Monash University with our students.

Kylie Glover

*    "Chirality is a geometric property of some molecules and ions. A chiral molecule/ion is non-superposable on its mirror image. The presence of an asymmetric carbon centre is one of several structural features that induce chirality in organic and inorganic molecules."