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)
What is a partial agonist?
What is an inverse agonist?
A drug which has both affinity and efficacy at the target but which is incapable of generating a maximal response
A drug which reduces the constitutive activity of a target system (has efficacy in the opposite direction, switches off receptor)
What are some of the effects of beta blockers?
Reduce anxiety
Decrease cardiac output
Inhibit renin release
Decrease output from sympathetic nervous system
