concepts and calculations

Question 1

What is Pharmacology?

Answer 1

the study of the effect of drugs on the function of living systems

Question 2

What is Pharmacodynamics?

Answer 2

effects of the drug on the body

Question 3

What is the mechanism of action of paracetamol dependent on?

Answer 3

inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis

Question 4

What is pharmacokinetics?

Answer 4

effects of the body on the drug

relates to absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion (ADME)

Question 5

What is the difference between a drug and a medicine?

Answer 5

Drugs are taken to produce a change in the body but medicines are taken for therapeutic effect and usually contain other substances to make them easier to use

Question 6

What is a drug?

Answer 6

biologically active compound (other than a nutrient or dietary ingredient) taken with intent to produce a change in the body

Question 7

What is a medicine?

Answer 7

A medical preparation which usually contains one or more drugs administered with the purpose of producing a therapeutic effect.
Medicines usually contain other substances to make them more convenient to use.

Question 8

What is an excipient?

Answer 8

a substance formulated alongside the active ingredient of a medication
usually to make the medicine easier to use

Question 9

What did Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) pioneer?

Answer 9

treatment of syphillis
Interested in staining cellular components
It took him three years’ and three hundred syntheses to produce ‘salvarsan’

Question 10

What is Ehrlichs magic bullet theory?

Answer 10

a drug would have selectively toxicity e.g. against a microbial agent or cancer cell.

Ideally with little action on the host cell even at high doses = therapy without toxicity.

Question 11

Is nicotine and agonist or an antagonist?

Answer 11

agonist

stimulant

Question 12

Why can you not classify drugs easily?

Answer 12

the need of chemists, pharmacologists, doctors differ

Question 13

What is a problem with nomenclature and drugs?

Answer 13

it is not always practical to present each drug under a single name as formulations vary widely

Any drug therefore may have names in 3 different classes

Question 14

What do 73% of drugs target?

Answer 14

Humans mostly proteins

Question 15

What do 16% of drugs target?

Answer 15

microbial or viral

Question 16

What do 11% of drugs target?

Answer 16

miscellaneous

Question 17

How many drugs were FDA approved in 2020?

Higher or lower than 2020?

Answer 17

53

Higher

Question 18

What are the conventional routes of identifying drug targets?

Answer 18

Analysis of pathophysiology

Analysis of mechanism of action of existing therapeutic drugs.

Question 19

What are novel routes of identifying drug targets?

Answer 19

trawl the genome

Question 20

What did Hitchings and Elion (1944) do?

Answer 20

unravelling of the synthesis of DNA

pioneered to help understand mechanisms of disease

Question 21

How many genes in the human genome are disease modifiying?

Answer 21

3000

Question 22

How many genes in the human genome are druggable?

Answer 22

3000

Question 23

Approximately how many genes can be used for targets in pharmacy? (ie. disease modifying and druggable)

Answer 23

600-1500

Question 24

Mass = conc x vol x formula weight

Answer 24

Mass = g
conc = mol/L
vol = L
formula weight = g/mol

Question 25

What is molarity?

Answer 25

How much of the substance is available in a given volume.

Question 26

What is a Mole?

Answer 26

The mole is the unit that defines the amount of a given substance.

Question 27

What is avogadros constant?

Answer 27

One mole contains 6 x1023 molecules of a substance.

Question 28

What is a biological assay?

Answer 28

A method of measuring the effects of a biologically active substance using an intermediate in vivo or in vitro tissue or cell model under controlled conditions.

Question 29

What is a logarithm?

Answer 29

A logarithm is defined as the power to which a base (10) must be raised to produce a given number (e.g. Log 100 = 2) Log 10 molar = 1 Log 1 millimolar = -3 (1x10^-3) Log 1 micromolar = -6 (1x10^-6) Log 1 nanomolar = -9 (1x10^-9)

Question 30

What is on the y axis of the Concentration response curve?

Answer 30

Normalised Response

Question 31

What is on the x axis of the concentraion response curve?

Answer 31

Log [Compound] (M)

Question 32

Why is this a good title for a concentration response curve? Concentration-response relationship for histamine on smooth muscle contraction in the polar bear

Answer 32

Histamine = what you're testing Smooth muscle contraction = effect the response relates to Polar bear = species tested on

Question 33

What is the therapeutic range for drugs?

Answer 33

6μM to 9nm

Question 34

What are the two implausible principles of homeopathy?

Answer 34

like causes like the greater the dilution, the more potent the medicine?