4.1.1 m sources of medicine Flashcards
what is the source of penicillin?
mould growing on melons
what does penicillin treat?
first effective treatment against many common bacterial diseases
what does docetaxel/ paclitaxel do?
treatment of breast cancer
what is the source of docetaxel/ paclitaxel?
yew trees
what is the source of prialt?
the venom of a cone snail from the oceans around Australia
what does prialt do?
new pain-killing drug which is 1000 times more effective than morphine
what is the source of aspirin?
based on compounds from sallow (willow) bark
what does aspirin do?
painkiller, anti-coagulent, anti-pyretic, anti-inflammatory
what is the source of vancomycin?
soil fungus
what does vancomycin do?
powerful antibiotic
what is the source of digoxin?
originally extracted from foxgloves
what does digoxin do?
powerful heart drug to treat atrial fibrillation and heart failure
define pharmacogenomics
science of interweaving knowledge of drug actions with personal genetic material
what is synthetic biology used for?
using genetic engineering, we can develop populations of bacteria that can produce drugs that would otherwise be too rare, expensive or unavailable
enables use of bacteria as biological factories
mammals can be genetically modified to produce needed therapeutic proteins in their milk
define nanotechnology
tiny, non-natural particles are used for biological purposes
what is an example of where pharmacogenomics is used?
in 30% of all breast cancers there is a mutation in the HER2 gene
the activity of this gene can be shut down by specific drugs (trastuzumab, lapatinib)
we can analyse breast tumours and treat those with the mutations with the drugs so we can reduce the deaths from HER2 breast cancer by 50%
