Chemistry

This course emphasizes hands-on laboratory experience and teaches students research background, relevant theories, and basic laboratory techniques relevant to their field of study. Students formulate a research plan, implement it by conducting experiment-based research, and convey the results in scholarly presentations. Students submit a written research report at the end of the course.

This course covers both the theory and application of a number of techniques in analytical chemistry, as well as instruction in the general principles of sampling and analysis and in the statistical presentation and testing of data. Topics include different strategies for sampling; quality assurance procedures in support of an analytical measurement; calibration curves and statistical procedures to extract quantitative information from a measurement; basic parametric and non-parametric significance tests on data; different chromatographic techniques for an analysis involving separation; the principles of different types of ion sources; analytical methods which employ mass spectrometry to identify and quantify the abundance of molecular species; modern techniques for determination of isotopic elemental composition, including isotope ratio quantification and accelerator mass spectrometry, and their application to understanding environmental processes; and the principles of biosensor design from simple molecular recognition to transduction of binding events and be able to apply these in the context of detecting a variety of classes of target molecule.

The Individual Research Training Senior (IRT Senior) Course is an advanced course of the Individual Research Training B (IRT B) course in the Tohoku University Junior Year Program in English (JYPE) in the spring semester. Though short-term international exchange students are not degree candidates at Tohoku University, a similar experience is offered by special arrangement. Students are required to submit: an abstract concerning the results of their IRT Senior project, a paper (A4, 20-30 pages) on their research at the end of the exchange term, and an oral presentation on the results of their IRT Senior project near the end of the　term.

Intellectual property and patent law in the pharmaceutical industry. An overview of the legal and regulatory framework for drug design and development. Clinical trials: formulation of a drug; phase I, phase II and phase III protocols. An introduction to the principles involved in the Codes of Good Manufacturing Practice and Good Laboratory Practice (quality control and quality assurance procedures) as applied to the manufacture of drug products and the quantification of drugs and metabolites in biological fluids. Examples of drug development. Case studies of selected drugs from design to release.

This course examines chemical reactions involving various types of reactive intermediates. The application of molecular orbital theory will be used to understand the nature of pericyclic reactions and the concept of coordination in main group (including carbon) and transition metal elements. An investigation of inorganic reaction mechanisms will focus on transformations involving coordination and organometallic complexes of d-block metals. Discussion of synthetic aspects will cover methods for carbon-carbon bond formation and functional group transformations, as well as principles of catalysis involving transition metal complexes and their chemistry in synthetic and biological systems.