Elemental Drama: From Fluorine to Pharma

 Finding a successful medicine is rare. Luckily, the proverbial haystack hiding these needles is unfathomably large, so there are a lot of new drugs waiting to be found. But this is, to use another cliché, a double-edged sword. It also means there is a lot of ground to cover, and some of that ground lies in uncharted territory. Synthetic methodology, the development of new chemical reactions, helps us chart that space and access new options for drug candidates. By finding new ways of building molecules, organic chemistry lets us delve into the unknown and find the treasures buried within.

Fluorine is one of the most unique elements on the periodic table and its use in anything from anaesthetics to non-stick frying pans through to space exploration has come to define the age we live in. However recently it has been found that chemicals containing many fluorine atoms, commonly referred to as PFAS or “forever chemicals”, can be dangerous for the environment and human health. This talk will discuss how fluorine helped build the modern world, how Durham has contributed to these advances and how we need to be conscious when it comes to its ongoing use to avoid damaging our planet.

Medicinal chemists are scientists who design and develop new drugs. The oldest written prescriptions date back to 2600 BC, some of which are for treatments still used today. It now takes an average of nearly £1bil and 12 years to bring a new drug to market. Why? In this talk we’re going to look at how the way we study and discover new medicines has changed over time, from the ‘try it and see’ era* of mercury, bloodletting and cocaine to selective antibiotics and modern biologics for cancer chemotherapy. *Medical advice taken at own risk. Treatment may be worse than disease.