Medicinal Chemistry

The Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research currently has 10 mass spectrometers that are used to characterize drug candidates and their metabolites. In an innovative move, the Centre provides open-access mass spectrometers to chemists for walkup analysis.

With state-of-the-art single-quadrupole, triple-quadrupole, sector and time-of-flight instruments, the mass spectrometry team provides structural analysis of molecules ranging from molecular weight 100 to 100,000. The group studies the structures of metabolites produced by cytochrome P450s and other metabolizing enzymes as well as the structures of the enzymes themselves. By identifying metabolites we provide information to the medicinal chemists that permits them to optimize the structure of drug candidates. This means that they will develop the best drug possible.