The research interests of the Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products Division are distinguished by a multi-disciplinary approach to Medicinal Chemistry and related biomedical disciplines. Under active investigation are: drug design; mechanism of drug action; structure-activity relationship studies relating to chemotherapeutic, antihypertensive, antimalarial, anti- inflammatory, anticonvulsant, antipsychotic, and cholinergic agents. Also investigations of inhibitors of lung and pancreatic elastase, diabetes, inhibitors of collagen synthesis, and studies of brain injury are included.

The formalization of our activities in the area of Natural Products Chemistry within the Division ( Natural Products Laboratory) has enabled us to harness the unique expertise of scientists within the Research Triangle Area who have expressed their interest in this field and to focus attention on current research aimed at biologically active natural products.

The Division also has a fully-equipped high radiospecific activity synthetic laboratory for the synthesis of radiolabelled compounds to be used in biochemical studies. A strong feature of the Division is the Laboratory for Molecular Modeling. One of the goals associated with this facility is to teach the latest skills and techniques of molecular modeling and computational chemistry which may be immediately applied to research. The laboratory is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art graphics hardware and software to facilitate a molecular modeling teaching and research program within the Division.