7 CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHEMISTRY TO MEDICINE - CHEMISTRY - 2025

The contributions of chemistry to medicine have contributed to many advances that constantly save lives, allowing us to live longer, happier and healthier.

Throughout much of human history, medicine and health care was primitive. If people got sick or injured, doctors could do nothing but comfort them and keep them clean.

The last 100 years have revolutionized the way physicians treat patients to cure disease, repair injuries, and even prevent health problems before they occur.

Chemists and chemical engineers with their hard work have helped the evolution of modern medicine by developing novel pharmaceuticals, creating new medical equipment, and refining diagnostic processes.

Millions of human lives have been saved and improved by medical advances developed through chemistry (Health and Medicine, 2011).

Main contributions of chemistry in medicine

1- Understanding the human body

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry that occurs within living organisms. It focuses especially on the structure and function of the chemical components of organisms.

Biochemistry governs all living organisms and all the processes that occur in them. Biochemical processes help explain the complexity of life by controlling the flow of information and by biochemical signaling and the flow of chemical energy through metabolism.

To understand how a disease affects the body, one must understand the human body as a whole.

For years, doctors only studied human anatomy without understanding its physiological and biochemical functioning. The development of chemistry changed the way medicine was made.

2- Manufacture of medicines

Most drugs are involved with the inhibition of a specific enzyme or the expression of a gene.

Blocking the active site of an enzyme requires a 'blocker or inhibitor' specifically designed to deactivate the enzyme's function.

Since enzymes are proteins, their functions differ depending on their form, and inhibitor drugs must be customized for each target enzyme.

From an aspirin to antiretrovirals for treating HIV, this required study and research and development in chemistry.

Drug discovery and development is one of the most complex and costly activities within the pharmaceutical industry.

It covers a wide range of end-to-end activities with a large number of supply chain and support services. The average cost to research and develop each successful drug is estimated to be between $ 800 million and $ 1 billion.

3- Medicinal chemistry

While it is true that pharmacology is responsible for drug development, its discovery lies in medical chemistry.

Drug target identification and validation, rational (target-based) drug design, structural biology, computational-based drug design, method development (chemical, biochemical, and computational), and "H2L" development.

Techniques and approaches from chemical biology, synthetic organic chemistry, combinatorial biochemistry, mechanistic enzymology, computational chemistry, chemical genomics, and high-throughput screening are used by medicinal chemists for drug discovery.

Medicinal Chemistry is one of the fastest developing areas within the Chemistry discipline globally. It is the study of the design, biochemical effects, regulatory and ethical aspects of drugs for the treatment of disease.

4- Medical diagnosis

When a bioanalyst does a blood test he is using chemistry. The chemistry departments of the hospital's medical laboratories analyze blood, urine, etc. to test for proteins, sugars (glucose in the urine is a sign of diabetes), and other metabolic and inorganic substances.

Electrolyte tests are a routine blood test, testing things like potassium and sodium.

Chemists have developed useful diagnostic tools used every day in hospitals, such as MRI and CT.

These techniques allow images (using magnetic waves or X-rays) so that doctors can see the organs, bones, and tissues within a patient.

5- Medical materials

Beyond the contributions that chemistry has made in medicine, we can also mention how chemistry is involved in hospitals and clinics on a daily basis.

From latex gloves, catheters, urine bags, catheters, even syringes are made with chemical materials.

6- Prosthesis

The chemical industry is responsible for the production of prostheses. Said prostheses are used for the replacement of lost limbs or for cosmetic surgery such as breast prostheses.

On the other hand, when a bone is replaced in a patient, it must be done with a material that the body does not reject. It is usually titanium but research has been done for replacement with a synthetic material similar to coral.

7- Human genetics

Molecular biology is the branch of biochemistry in charge of the study of DNA. During recent years, important advances have been made in this area that help us understand the role of the genetic code in living beings and this has helped improve medicine.

An example of this is the concept of interfering RNA (iRNA), where biochemical engineering is used to inhibit the translation of mRNA into an amino acid sequence by ribosomes requires chemistry.

In iRNA, a designed piece of double-stranded RNA literally cuts the mRNA to prevent it from undergoing translation.

Origin of the application of chemistry in medicine

It all started with Paracelsus

Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), who called himself Paracelsus, is the man who pioneered the use of minerals and other chemicals in medicine.

Mercury, lead, arsenic and antimony, poisons for the specialists, were cures in his opinion.

«In all things there is a poison, and there is nothing without a poison, it depends only on the dose, whether a poison is poison or not…»

Paracelsus

Although most of his recipes have fallen out of favor, arsenic is still used to kill certain parasites. Antimony was used as a purgative and gained much popularity after it was used to cure Louis XIV.

Paracelsus wrote many books on medicine, although most of his work was not published until after his death, and his influence increased posthumously.

Paracelsus gained an important supporter in Peder Sorensen (also known as Petrus Severinus), whose Idea medicinæ philosophicae published in 1571 defended Paracelsus over Galen, considered the supreme medical authority.

The first medical chemistry courses were taught in Jena in the early 1600s and the new chemical medicine invented by Paracelsus was published in the Ottoman Empire shortly after.

Although we think of Paracelsus as the first medical chemist, he considered himself an alchemist, and astrology and mysticism abound in his writings, even his chemical preparations are like passages from a grimoire.

In any case, he had the soul of a scientist and preferred direct experience over ancient authorities. Although he was not fully appreciated until his death, medicine would be a different field without his contributions.

References

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