Molecule of the Month - July - Thalidomide

[Dr. B. Blessington]

Hi,
	I think this is an excellent example of what can be achieved by
undergraduates and Alex Lingham should be warmly congratulated. The 
topic is interesting and wide ranging and clearly presented. The 
ability to illustrate many aspects of taught courses (isomerism, 
structure drawing and modeling, biological action mechanisms etc) is a 
good training exercise for students. 
 So Armand , I don't think we should be too hard if some aspects are 
not dealt with.
 However it would be good to include a brief bibliography, so 
interested readers could follow up some references (the Israeli doctor
?, Racemisation of Thalidomide ? Original Data on R v S toxicity ? ).
 The latter point is important, it should be shown to and discussed with
students, because it illustrates how oft-repeated and hence accepted 
theories arise, though they may be based on suspect data.

Bernard Blessington

On Fri, 30 Jun 2000 09:54:18 +0100 (BST) Paul May 
<paul.may at bristol.ac.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> July's MOTM is the notorious drug, thalidomide.  The pages have been
> written by one of the undergraduates here at Bristol, and include a nice
> introductory discussion on various types of isomerism, including the
> optical isomerism that was responsible for thalidomide's side-effects.
> 
> It's only available in HTML format, but 3D structure files of most of the
> molecules on the pages are available via hyperlink.
> 
> http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm
> 
>  Regards,
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr Paul May, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
> tel: +44 (0)117 928-9927, fax: +44 (0)117 925-1295
> <mailto:paul.may at bris.ac.uk>
> Home URL: <http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/staff/pwm.htm>
> Molecule of the Month: <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm>
> "That's inches away from being millimetre perfect" (Ted Lowe)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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-------------------
Dr. B. Blessington
Pharmaceutical Chemistry Section,
Pharmacy Department, Bradford University.
Bradford BD7 1DP,  UK

e-mail:   b.blessington at brad.ac.uk
WWW:   http://www.staff.brad.ac.uk/bblessin/
Tel. :   44 (0) 1274 234704
FAX :    44 (0) 1274 235600



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