optional module 4: medicinal chemistry Flashcards
what diseases do mosquitos spread
malaria, dengue fever and the zika virus
how did insulin used to be exctracted
from the pancreas of cattle to treat children suffering from diabetes.
how is insulin extracted today
synthesised using bacteria or yeast to meet the public deamnd
where are synthetic drugs produced
in a laboratory, using chemical reactions to produce and isolate the acrive medicinal agent
where was asprin first extracted from
from the bark of willow trees,
how is asprin produced now
now made commercially by reacting acetic anhydride with salicylic acid. The product, acetylsalicylic acid, is then isolated from the other product acetic acid and purified from any other contaminants.
drug synthesis pathway
drug discovery
pre clinical
clinical trials (phase I, II, III)
review
manufacturing phase IV
what is combinatorial chemistry
a laboratory method that involves using robotics to synthesise thousands of different compounds at a time, usually peptides or small molecules. The compounds can then be tested for effectiveness, and then kept for further testing or modification, or discarded. With this highly automated process, large volumes of molecules can be synthesised and tested in a short period of time, but it is more of a trial-and-error approach, resulting in a large amount of molecules made that have no activity. Although it is difficult for scientists to mimic natural processes, combinatorial chemistry is proving to be making new advancements in drug discovery.
what is a double blind test
where a placebo is offered to one group of patients while the other group recieves the drug
what is a placebo
a pill, lotion or injection that does not contain the active ingredient that the drug has, and is used to see if the drug does have a measurable effect compared to not using the drug.
methods of drug administeration
Ingestion by mouth (e.g. pills or syrups).
Injection with a syringe under the skin into fat or muscle tissue or bloodstream.
Inhalation by mouth or nose (e.g. as with an inhaler or nebuliser).
Absorption through the skin (e.g. medicated lotions or stick-on patches).
Absorption in the rectum or vagina (e.g. suppositories).
Applied into the ear or eye (e.g. drops of prepared solutions).
what does oral medicine require
the medicine to be absorbed by the digestive tract
what is the speed and ability of the body to absorb medicine called
metabolism
what determines method of administeration
dosage (grams or millilitres)
frequency of administeration
tolerance of the drug
side effects
what can help to prevent against addiction
A slower, time-released method, such as with oral ingestion or a skin patch, can help to keep the levels of medicine in the body lower and more consistent, and avoid dependency.
in animals, the theraputic index is the lethal dose of the drug for
50% of the population (LD50) divided by the minimum effective dose for 50% of the population (ED50)
in humans, the theraputic index is the toxic dose for
50% of the population (TD50) divided by the minimum effective dose for 50% of the population (ED50)
the theraputic window is
the range of dosages between the minimum amounts of the drug that produce the desired effect and a medically unacceptable adverse effect
theraputic index
the effective window where the dosage of the drug is most active
lethal dose
the dose of the drug that is enough to kill half of the population
toxic dose
upper limit of the therapeutic window
doage
amount of drug given
aims of drug administration
dosage, tolerance, addictiona nd side effects
what is bioavailability
the fraction of the administered dosage that reaches the target part of the human body