Medicinal and Biological Chemistry with Industrial Placement

Chemistry is central to solving the world’s most pressing challenges – from clean energy and climate change to food security and new medicines. At Nottingham, you’ll examine these global issues through the lens of sustainable chemistry, gaining the practical, digital, and professional skills needed to make a real-world impact.

The degree combines a dynamic chemistry programme with a chemistry industrial placement in year three. This provides you with valuable practical experience and enhances your career prospects. It allows you to apply your knowledge, develop professional skills, and build industry connections.

Medicinal and Biological Chemistry explores the interplay between chemistry and biology to develop an understanding of human disease and drug design. A degree in medicinal and biological chemistry will equip you with the knowledge and skills to explore the molecular foundations of health and disease. From drug design and development to understanding how we can engineer biochemical pathways, this course will place you at the forefront of innovation in pharmaceuticals, chemical biology and biotechnology.

You’ll be taught by internationally recognised researchers, including pioneers in green chemistry and AI-driven discovery. Our curriculum is designed with industry input and student collaboration, ensuring you graduate with the confidence and adaptability to thrive in a fast-changing world.

The School of Chemistry at Nottingham is one of the largest in the UK. Our award-winning Carbon Neutral Laboratory enables world-leading research in sustainable chemistry, supporting our mission to develop innovative solutions for a greener future. Your curiosity for this exciting subject will be supported by our teaching staff, some of whom are featured on the popular Periodic Videos YouTube channel.

This four-year course will give you the knowledge and practical lab experience to understand how innovations lead to solutions of societal, commercial and global problems. A standout feature of this course is the opportunity to undertake a paid, assessed placement within a chemical company, where you’ll contribute to a real research project and gain invaluable industry experience. This hands-on role allows you to apply your academic knowledge in a professional setting while developing key transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, and project management.

Alongside your placement, you’ll complete a distance learning theory module to continue your academic progress. You’ll also receive dedicated support from a placement tutor, who will stay in touch throughout to ensure you’re making the most of your experience. Watch Emily’s video of her placement experience as a Formulation Development Scientist at Upperton Pharma.

You can choose from a range of medicinal and biological topics in chemistry for your fourth-year research project, depending on your interests or career aspirations. You will join one of our research groups to work on your project and benefit from the active research and latest insight of these groups.

You’ll take compulsory practical modules which introduce essential qualitative and quantitative laboratory skills which are required in inorganic, organic and physical chemistry. Optional modules allow you to tailor your degree to your own interests, learning to uncover the science behind how drugs are designed, how they interact with the body, and how chemistry helps treat disease.

These programmes also benefit from a stream of newly developed modules with new specialist content. You will study modules in green and sustainable chemistry and become an effective communicator of scientific ideas to a variety of audiences, using a range of media. These new modules will help you understand how chemistry is being reimagined to reduce environmental impact and create safer, cleaner solutions as part of a core stream of sustainability topics featured throughout this course.

Course Modules

For detailed information about the modules you will study, please visit the course page

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studywithus/ugstudy/courses/UG/Medicinal-and-Biological-Chemistry-with-Industrial-Placement-MSci-Hons.html

For detailed information about the course assessment methods please visit the course page: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studywithus/ugstudy/courses/UG/Medicinal-and-Biological-Chemistry-with-Industrial-Placement-MSci-Hons.html

Professionally accredited courses provide industry-wide recognition of the quality of your qualification.

• Chemistry, Royal Society of