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High Throughput Screening for High speed Drug Discovery

akshat0026's picture
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Automisation of the labaratories is a multi-disciplinary strategy to research, develop, optimize and capitalize on technologies in the

Memory drugs- part 2

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 Donepezil study involved 69 people with multiple sclerosis and mild cognitive problems. One – half of the participants took the drug for 24 weeks and the other half took a placebo. The participants were tested for memory and other cognitive functions at the begning and end of the study.

At the study’s conclusion those taking donepezil improved by an average of 14 percent on the memory test, compared to a 3 percent improved for those taking the placebo. 66 percent of those taking the drug felt that their memory had improved, compared to 32 percent of those taking the placebo.

Memory drugs - part 1

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 1990s were the vanguard of the sexual stimulant revolution in the case of pharmaceutical sector. Now, 2000s will be the age of memory enhancing drugs? Memory enhancing drugs are in the pipelines of several biopharmaceutical companies. Companies like Memory Pharmaceuticals, Sention, Saegis Pharmaceuticals, and Cortex Pharmaceuticals all have these drugs in the pipeline. If they do well, these companies will repeat the success stories of Viagra, Levitra makers (Pfizer and GSK respectively).

Advantages of edible vaccines

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A "subunit vaccine" refers to a pathogen-derived protein that cannot cause disease but can elicit a protective immune response against the pathogen.
Conventional subunit vaccines as well as edible vaccines are composed of antigenic proteins and do not contain pathogenic genes(because obviously they use attenuated strains). Thus, they have no way of establishing infection and safety is assured.

Concept behind edible vaccines

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Edible vaccines are created by introducing selected desired genes into plants and inducing these genetically modified plants to manufacture the encoded proteins. This process is known as "transformation," and the altered plants are called "transgenic plants." 

When an antigen of a pathogen can produce an immunogenic response when delivered orally, it is considered as a likely candidate for an edible vaccine. The gene encoding the orally active antigenic protein is isolated from the pathogen, and a suitable vehicle for constitutive or tissue-specific expression of the gene is prepared.  

Vaccines

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According to the WHO and MeSH(Medical Subject Headings) scope note, vaccines are “Suspensions of killed or attenuated microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, or rickettsiae), antigenic proteins derived from them, or synthetic constructs, administered for the prevention, amelioration, or treatment of infectious and other diseases.”

TEMPORAL VARIATION IN DRUG ABSORPTION -continued

Rameshwar Reddy's picture
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Acute side effects of drugs are often corelated to initially high drug concentrations. It is possible to assume, therefore, that such side effects may occur more pronouncedly at that time of day at which Cmax values are highest and / or Tmax is shortest. At least with an immediate –release preparations of isosorbide-5-mononitrate orthostatic hypertension was most pronounced after morning dosing at which Tmax of isosorbide-5-mononitrate was significantly shorter than after evening dosing.

TEMPORAL VARIATION IN DRUG ABSORPTION

Rameshwar Reddy's picture
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The main aim of chronokinetics studies is to control the time of administration which among others, can not only be responsible for verification of drug kinetics but also may explain chronopharmacological effects observed with certain drugs.

Passive diffusion is by far the most important process in the mechanism of drug absorption. Absorption after oral drug dosing can be influenced by the physio-chemical properties of the drug, the area and the structure of the bio-membrane, gastric emptying, pH and motility and gastro-intestinal blood flow. In the light of circadian variations, there are several reports on temporal variations of drug absorption.

Most of the drugs seem to have higher rate or extent of bioavailability when they are administered in the morning than when they are taken in the evening.

Chrono Pharmacokinetics

Rameshwar Reddy's picture
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Chronopharmacokinetics refer to dosing – time (i.e, rhythms-dependant) differences in the absorption, metabolism and elimination of medications.
Temporal changes can be involved at each step of the sequence of pharmacokinetic processes
a) temporal changes in drug absorption,
b) in drug metabolism (enzyme activity, hepatic blood flow) and in renal drug excretion.
Thus, the time of administration of a drug is an important source of variation which must be taken into account in kinetic studies. In a chronopharmacokinetic study many factors relating to the condition of the administration.

There are some instances in which chronokinetic study is needed.

i) When possible daily variation in pharmacokinetics may be responsible for time dependent variations in drug effects,
ii) When drugs have a narrow therapeutic range,

Plagiarism

nirupama's picture
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I received a mail from pharmainfo.net the last week. It was in response to a mail I'd sent them because I'd had a problem including an image in a blog entry. They told me that it was because I was infringing on a copyright held by the owners of that image.

I felt terrible about that because I know copyright infringement is a very serious crime. I'd read a lot about it especially in the recent court cases ranging from Pfizer suing Ranbaxy for stealing a drug patent to Rajesh Roshan stealing music(Krazzy 4) to J.K.Rowling suing a publisher who tried to publish an unauthorised encyclopaedia to her work.

I quote from Wikipedia:

“Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of the copyright holder, when material is used without the copyright holder's consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author's reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship.”

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