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Much organic chemistry research is in synthesizing organic compounds for medicine, nutrition, and materials science, and to find more efficient methods for the isolation and purification of naturally occurring substances of commercial value. This is often in collaboration with biochemists, physicists, engineers, and medical personnel.
A strong field of research is in the synthesis of drugs that act against diseases. In this type of research, once the organic chemist has created the molecule (eg. insulin, anti-tumor agents, etc), it is given to biochemists, pharmacologists, and toxicologists to test for activity, mode of biologic action, and safety. If the candidate is not useful for one reason or another, organic chemists work to modify the structure in the hope of improving its biological properties.
Organic chemists also work with process engineers and molecular biologists to design specially designed organisms for industrial use. For example, they are working to design microbes that will ingest and metabolize petroleum, and organic chemists are involved with the manipulation of certain metabolizing compounds in order to incorporate these into the microbes.
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