Science education can be so specialized that students miss its broader context in real-world problem solving. We are using NSF funds to address this issue by developing and refining IUPUI's Distributed Drug Discovery (D3) program for implementation at small and large undergraduate institutions. D3 challenges students to help solve a pressing humanitarian need � finding drug leads for neglected diseases � while gaining coordinated expertise in organic chemistry, computational chemistry, and biology. Lectures and lab modules teach fundamental knowledge and skills in these core disciplines while establishing their broad interdisciplinary context in neglected disease drug-lead discovery. Students pursue integrated, distributed, inquiry-based drug-lead discovery with no predetermined outcome.Synthetic chemistry is the most highly developed component and serves as a model for the teaching structure and specifications required of D3. We have conducted D3 chemistry labs at IUPUI and across the U.S. and Europe. The simple, inexpensive, reproducible procedures � critical requirements of a D3 process � are capable of producing large numbers of biomimetic molecules that are derivatives of natural and unnatural amino acids. Second semester organic students currently make molecules with potential biological activity in general screens, or against specific malarial, bacterial, or cystic fibrosis targets.For the biological component we are piloting an undergraduate lab to test these molecules on the growth of bacterial biofilms, a critical process in the course of many bacterial infections, including those encountered in cystic fibrosis.Work is beginning on computational modules to enable the full inquiry-based integrated potential of this program: the student selection, synthesis and testing of molecules directed to a particular neglected disease target.At a one-week workshop, teachers from small and large schools in the US, Eastern Europe and Africa, with limited or ample resources and widely varied student backgrounds, have tested, analyzed, and refined this program to optimize its general applicability.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the NSF (DUE 1140602) for support of this project.

Distributed Drug Discovery (D3): Advancing chemical education through contextualized organic laboratories

246th National Meeting (2013)

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