Spring 2027

Medicinal Chemistry I

Medicinal Chemistry I covers basic concepts in small molecule medicinal product chemistry, including structure-activity relationships for various drug classes and an overview of drug metabolism and genetic variability.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Jennifer GoldenNicholas Kalogriopoulos

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Richard Hsung

Exams were open-note, allowing students to use any format including paper, laptops, or iPads.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify drugs, their therapeutic use, and side effects based on drug name and structure

  • Use pharmacophoric drug models to predict potency, metabolism, or side effects

  • Apply mechanisms of drug/xenobiotic biotransformation to parent drugs

  • Explain factors affecting drug/xenobiotic metabolism in humans, including both environmental and genetic effects and the resulting clinical implications

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

PHM SCI 432

PHMSCI 531 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.07 GPA, 43.6% A/AB (n=94 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.48 GPA, 65.6% A/AB (n=125 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.28 GPA, 59.7% A/AB (n=134 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JENNIFER GOLDEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

RICHARD HSUNG is recorded teaching in Fall 2010, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1350

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Richard Hsung

Students praised the instructor's enthusiasm and humor, noting he was genuinely excited to teach the material.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.07 GPA, 43.6% A/AB (n=94 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.48 GPA, 65.6% A/AB (n=125 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.28 GPA, 59.7% A/AB (n=134 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Richard Hsung

Exams were open-note, allowing students to use any format including paper, laptops, or iPads.

Past student reviews · Richard Hsung

The reviewer described the instructor as hilarious and expressed a strong desire to take another class from him.

Topics

  • Structure-activity relationships of cholinergic, adrenergic, serotonergic, and dopaminergic agents; antidepressants, antianxiety drugs, opioids, and antihistamines
  • Drug metabolism, metabolic drug interactions, and genetic variability in drug metabolism genes
  • Pharmacophoric drug models for predicting potency, metabolism, or side effects

Skills

  • Identify drugs, their therapeutic use, and side effects based on drug name and structure
  • Use pharmacophoric drug models to predict potency, metabolism, or side effects
  • Apply mechanisms of drug/xenobiotic biotransformation to parent drugs
  • Explain factors affecting drug/xenobiotic metabolism in humans, including environmental and genetic effects and clinical implications

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.17 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records
PHMSCI 531 · Spring 2027

Medicinal Chemistry I

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:718:014402",
    "course_id": "PHMSCI 531",
    "course_uid": "course_9e16b17aaf841286719019d6",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "014402",
    "source_subject_id": "718",
    "title": "Medicinal Chemistry I",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Fall"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "cc29265f613b6fb0e66aee5522dc900493e7bd5f9f0bda0f22c71a1b3bc3dde9",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}