Centre for Molecular Design (CMD)

The Centre for Molecular Design was formed in 1993 to provide a central facility for research into molecular design, enabling researchers from a number of Schools across the University to pool resources and skills. Following the appointment of Professor Tim Clark as group leader in 2007, CMD continues to develop as a centre of excellence in computational chemistry and biology, with research focussed on the development of novel computational techniques for modelling, simulation, cheminformatics and bioinformatics.

Current research efforts include the ParaShift project, which aims to replace conventional atomistic modelling techniques with methods based on local molecular surface properties to derive more reliable predictions of biological activity and physical properties. This work is a collaboration with researchers from the universities of Erlangen, Southampton and Aberdeen. Software developed during the project is available from CEPOS InSilico.

The Centre for Molecular Design is based in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences and forms part of the Biomaterials and Bionanotechnology section of the Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Sciences.