Program Description
Aims and Objectives: After using the program a student should be able to: - identify chiral molecules - understand the relevance of chirality to the actions of drugs - understand the relevance of chirality to the absorption, distribution - biotransformation and excretion of drugs - know some analytical methods for the separation of chiral compounds.

The program uses high quality graphics and animations to illustrate the importance of stereoisomerism in pharmacology. It can be used to supplement lectures or for remedial teaching of the topic of isomerism, particularly chirality and its relevance to drugs. The program explains the various forms of isomerism and then concentrates on stereoisomerism. Students are shown how to identify chiral centres and the sequence rule for naming isomers is explained. Students are shown examples of how chirality may affect the adsorption, the distribution, biotransformation or excretion of drugs and how the actions of drugs on receptors in the body can be affected by chirality. The program explains the use of HPLC in the detection and analysis of chiral compounds.