Back to the full dot-point answer
VICChemistryQuick questions
Unit 4: How are carbon-based compounds designed for purpose?
Quick questions on Medicinal chemistry: drug action and structure-activity relationships (VCE Chemistry Unit 4)
5short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What are drug-target binding via intermolecular forces?Show answer
Most drugs do not form covalent bonds with their targets (the exceptions, such as aspirin's acetylation of cyclooxygenase, are explicit). Binding is therefore reversible and depends on multiple non-covalent interactions accumulating in the binding site:
What is structure-activity relationships (SAR)?Show answer
SAR is the systematic study of how structural changes affect activity. Drug discovery uses SAR to optimise from a lead compound to a clinically useful drug. The relevant questions for VCE:
What is q1?Show answer
Identify three intermolecular forces that contribute to drug-target binding and give one functional group that participates in each. [3 marks]
What is q2?Show answer
Explain why aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is less ulcerogenic than salicylic acid, with reference to the structural difference. [4 marks]
What is q3?Show answer
A medicinal chemist replaces a hydrogen on an aromatic ring of a CNS drug with fluorine. Identify two likely effects of this modification. [4 marks]
Have a question we have not covered?
This dot-point answer is short enough that we have not extracted many short questions yet. Read the full dot-point answer or ask Mo, our study assistant, in the chat for follow ups.