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Volume 4,Issue 6

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26 April 2026

Integrating Computer-Aided and AI-Driven Drug Design into Medicinal Chemistry Education: A Computational Course on EGFR L858R/V948R-Targeted Oral Anti-Lung Cancer Agents

Qingkun Li1† ,  Ayixian Wusiman1† ,  Nan Wang1† ,  Zhenming Liu1,2* ,  Shengwen Yang1*
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1 Key Laboratory of Xinjiang Endemic Phytomedicine Resources, Ministry of Education; School of Pharmacy, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832002, Xinjiang, China
2 State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China
CEF 2026 , 4(4), 104–109; https://doi.org/10.18063/CEF.v4i4.1889
© 2026 by the Author. Licensee: Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty Ltd, Australia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

The traditional medicinal chemistry education suffers from the high barrier of equipment and the teaching of modern computational methods. To solve this, we designed an AI-assisted computational drug design course, “Design of Oral Anti-Lung Cancer Drugs Targeting EGFR L858R/V948R,” for pharmacy undergraduates. The course focuses mainly on a resistant mutation in NSCLC and employs a structured workflow with several software tools such as Schrödinger, PyMOL, MolSnapper, Pipeline Pilot and GROMACS. Through 16 class hours, students can complete the closed-loop learning experience from target selection to candidate compound confirmation. In summary, this course is helpful for technical barriers, encourages students to form an interdisciplinary thinking consciousness, and provides a transferable model for the modernization of hands-on medicinal chemistry education.

Keywords
Medicinal chemistry education
CADD
AIDD
EGFR L858R/V948R
Virtual screening
Molecular generation
Molecular dynamics simulations
Funding
Ministry of Education Industry-Academia Cooperation Collaborative Education Project (Project No.: 2508153613); Shihezi University Education and Teaching Reform Research Project (Project No.: JGY-2025-55)
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