The College of Education for Pure Sciences, Department of Chemistry, reviewed a doctoral dissertation on the preparation and study of the biological activity of monocarbonyl curcumin and its derivatives. The dissertation, submitted by researcher Haider Saleh Mahdi, aimed to prepare several symmetric and asymmetric monocarbonyl curcumin compounds, as well as their heterocyclic derivatives, using ultrasonic and classical methods to determine the most suitable for preparation. The prepared compounds were characterized using FT-IR spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy, and ESI mass spectrometry. The biological activity of the prepared compounds was evaluated as anticancer agents against SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cell lines, PC-3 prostate cancer cell lines, and HCT-116 colon cancer cell lines. An in silico computational study was also conducted, including molecular docking, to determine the nature of ligand binding in the protein pocket and the charge distribution on the surface to identify potential sites. The study investigated the bonding and energy gap between the molecular boundary orbitals and their effect on the biological activity of the studied compounds.

It also calculated the infrared spectra of some of the compounds under study theoretically and compared them with experimental results.

The thesis comprised three main axes: The first axis involved the preparation of two series of compounds. In the first series, four monocarbonylcurcumin compounds were prepared via Clayssen-Schmidth double condensation: A, B, C, and D. The second axis involved evaluating the biological activity of the prepared compounds against three types of cancer cell lines: SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cell line, PC-3 prostate cancer cell line, and HCT-116 colon cancer cell line. Compound A showed the highest activity against the ovarian cancer cell line. The third axis involved a theoretical study of the studied compounds, comprising two parts. The first part included geometric optimization of all compounds, calculation of the energy gap between the molecular boundary orbitals and the surface charge distribution, as well as calculation of the infrared spectra. For compounds B, C, APY, and DPDA, using density function theory (DFT) and at the theoretical level