Cheminformatics Education, November 2008

One of the ways to raise its public awareness is to integrate cheminformatics into chemistry curricula. At the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg, cheminformatics is taught as an individual discipline at the undergraduate, masters and PhD levels.^6.7 An “introduction to cheminformatics” course is delivered to third year undergraduate students.

Research is the main focus of the Unilever Centre for Molecular Science Informatics at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry. However, the center also provides both undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in molecular informatics (“cheminformatics plus bioinformatics”).¹⁰ The undergraduate course in molecular informatics is the most advanced course in the chemistry degree program that is taken by all the students in the class. At this stage, the students have already had the opportunity to specialize in particular areas of chemistry, and will soon move on to specific research projects. The center provides students with information about the molecular informatics tools available to them, as they move towards the research environment, and demonstrates how data they gather can be combined to provide knowledge that would be inaccessible without co-operative effort and suitable analysis.

The Applied Chemistry degree from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT) at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal is now an EU first-cycle “Bologna degree”, recently certified by the European Chemistry Thematic Network with the Eurobachelor label. An undergraduate introductory cheminformatics module is part of the third year program of the Applied Chemistry degree. Learning cheminformatics reinforces basic chemical concepts (e.g. stereochemistry), develops the ability for multidisciplinary approaches (e.g., in QSAR studies), and promotes transferable competences related to data management.¹¹

At the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany a study course for a bachelors degree in Molecular Science was established a few years ago. In this course, the students are required to take classes in cheminformatics during their studies to prepare them for their masters degree studies.

The Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield is better known for its research work and its masters programs but recently, its activities have been extended to include undergraduate teaching in a move to integrate cheminformatics teaching into mainstream chemistry teaching.¹² Undergraduates now have the option of studying for an MChem / BSc course in Chemistry with Computational Drug Design. This has been designed by the cheminformatics research group in collaboration with the Department of Chemistry. It is a basic chemistry degree with increasing cheminformatics content (replacing some inorganic chemistry); 50% of year four of the MChem involves a cheminformatics research project. The first students are expected in 2008. The level one module (introduction to cheminformatics) is already delivered as an elective on all chemistry degree programs and had 50 students in 2007/08.

The Department of Chemistry at Michigan Tech⁸ offers undergraduate degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, and cheminformatics, in addition to the basic chemistry degree.