Pharmacology Flashcards
What is a therapy?
What is a cure?
A drug which treats the cause of a condition but does not rectify the underlying physiological cause e.g. Antihistamines
A drug which removes the underlying physiological cause of a condition e.f. Antibacterials, some anti-cancer agents
When naming drugs you should use the chemical name, true or false?
False, you should use the chemical name
Apporoximately how many years does drug development take?
15-20yrs
How do drugs work, what do they bind to?
They bind to biological molecules e.g. Lipids, nucleic acid and proteins
Name four types of receptor.
Ion channel receptor
G-protein coupled receptor
Enzyme linked receptor
Nuclear receptors
How would you find the specific binding of a drug?
Subtract non-specific binding from total binding
What is Kd?
What is Kd a measure of?
What is Bmax?
The dissociation constant (concentration of ligand at 50% of receptor occupancy)
Affinity of drug for a receptor
Binding capacity or total receptor binding, when all receptor are bound
Do agonists have affinity?
Yes
In drug design is a high or low Kd preferable?
Low is better as it means the affinity is better so only a small amount of drug is required to occupy 50% of receptors
What causes platoing of a dose response curve?
Finite number of receptors and limitations of the second messenger system
What is efficacy?
How is it measured?
The ability of a drug to elicit a physiological response in the target tissue
Using the EC50 (effective concentration 50) - concentration of drug required to elicit a half maximal response
What is an agonist?
What is an antagonist?
A drug which has both affinity for the target and efficacy at the target (binds to a receptor and has a response)
A drug which has affinity for the target but no efficacy at the target (binds but doesn’t do anything)
What is the affinity of a drug?
A measure of the ability of a drug to bind to a specific receptor
What effect to antagonists have on a dose response curve?
Can’t elecit a response but move the curve
What is pharmacodynamics?
What is pharmacokinetics?
The physiological effect of a drug or it’s mechanism of action (what the drug does to you)
The disposition of a drug by the body, it’s metabolism and removal from the system (what you do to the drug)
