CourseIn personFree

Discourse: How to get a molecule to obey you (theatre)

OCT30
19:20 · Europe / London
  • A chemist explains how chemical compounds and bonds are central to medicines and everyday life.
  • Attendees will learn about the challenges of drug development, from compound testing to delivery and clinical trials.
  • This talk is for those interested in chemistry's role in medicine and its impact on health.

About this event

This page is for ‘in person’ Theatre tickets only. For online tickets, go to this online page . Both in person and online ticket holders will have access to the event recording.
You may not consider much beyond the medicine your prescribed, or purchase from the shelves, beyond the hope that it will make you feel better when you’re ill.
But beneath the foil popper, or inside that bottle is a highly researched chemical compound cocktail. Chemical compounds and their chemical bonds lie at the heart of not just medicines but of everything that we can see, touch or smell, and some things that are odourless and invisible to the naked eye too. In this Discourse, chemist Ijeoma Uchegbu illuminates how chemistry touches every aspect of our world.
Making medicines is an expensive and risky endeavour with, on average, over 5,000 compounds needing to be tested in some form or other before a useable drug compound emerges. A lot of compounds with poor activity fall by the wayside costing about a billion pounds per medicine. A further challenge lies in ensuring that after a medicine is developed patients follow their prescription.
Together we’ll explore how the industry has tackled these issues, from poor activity and side effects to ensuring that drug compounds reach the diseased part of the body whilst lessening the impact on healthy areas and clinical testing. With decisions being made at a nanoparticle level you’ll come away with a better understanding of this highly complex field and its impact on our everyday lives – from medicines to vaccines.

Copies of Ijeoma's book "Chain Reaction" will be available to purchase after the talk.
By booking to attend events at the Royal Institution, you confirm that you have read and agree to the Ri's event terms and conditions.
Discourses are one of the Ri’s oldest and most prestigious series of talks. Since 1825, audiences in the theatre have witnessed countless mind-expanding moments, including the first public liquefaction of air by Jam

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