Organisation profile

The Bernard W. Marcus Center for Medicinal Chemistry is based in the Chemistry Department of Bar Ilan University and has as its research focus the groups of Professors Abraham Nudelman, Alfred Hassner, Bilha Fischer, Gerardo Byk and Amnon Albeck. The Center serves as a focal point for research in drug development, studies of mechanisms of drug action, enzymatic mechanisms, drug-receptor interactions. The sponsored investigations address problems involving basic research on the elucidation of drug action as well as applied research involving the development of novel drugs.

The fields being investigated include: Antibiotics, anticancer agents, enzyme inhibitors, antidiabetics, drugs for the treatment of AIDS, neuroprotectants for treatment of Alzheimers and Parkinson diseases, antivirals, drugs for the treatment of neuropathic pain, anti-schizophrenics, drugs useful in photodynamic therapy, anti-glaucoma drugs, anti-oxidants, cholinergics, nano-biotechnology: development of high throughput methods for fast screening of small molecules, development of computational tools for drug design and development of novel diagnostic techniques

The Research Objectives of the Center are:

• To study the basic mechanisms of drug action.
• To develop new drugs for the treatment of diseases which affect large numbers of patients.
• To identify small molecules for tumor imaging and drug targeting.
• To instruct undergraduate and graduate students on all stages of drug development.
• To develop novel drug design tools
• To develop novel diagnostic tools

Presently one of the drugs synthesized is about to complete a Phase II clinical trial for the treatment of schizophrenia.

It should be noted that a considerable number of the graduates of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the Bar Ilan Chemistry Department are employed by the pharmaceutical industry in Israel.