Phar2011 - Week 1

What is pharmacology?

The study of how drugs work and how they affect our bodies.

What does the word pharmacology originate from?

It comes from the ancient Greek words ‘pharmakon’ meaning drug and poison, and ‘logia’ meaning knowledge or study.

What is the difference between drugs and medicines?

All medicines are drugs, but not all drugs are medicines; medicines are approved drugs used to treat or prevent specific health conditions.

What are ligands?

Molecules that bind to a receptor; can be endogenous to the body or introduced (i.e., a drug).

What constitutes a therapeutic good?

A medicine or device approved by the TGA (or FDA in the USA) for preventing, diagnosing, curing, or alleviating diseases.

What is the distinction between small molecule drugs and biologics?

Small molecules are low molecular weight substances that can easily be absorbed, while biologics are derived from living organisms, are larger and more complex.

What is affinity in pharmacology?

The strength of the interaction between a ligand and a receptor.

What is a dose-response curve?

A graph that shows the relationship between the dose of a drug and the magnitude of the response it produces.

What is the role of pharmacodynamics?

It studies what the drug does to the body, specifically its effects and mechanisms of action.

What is pharmacokinetics?

It studies what the body does to the drug, focusing on absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME).

What is a full agonist?

A compound that can bind to and fully activate a receptor, producing a maximum response.

What is the difference between adverse events and side effects?

Adverse events are unexpected medical occurrences during treatment without a causal relationship to the treatment, while side effects are predictable symptoms that can develop while taking a drug.

What is the significance of IC50 in pharmacology?

It is the concentration of a drug that inhibits a biological process by 50%, used to measure the potency of a drug.

What is an antagonist in pharmacology?

A compound that can bind to a receptor but does not activate it, blocking the action of endogenous ligands.

What does Emax represent in pharmacology?

It represents the maximum response that can be achieved with a drug, usually compared to a reference ligand.

What is a receptor in pharmacology?

A macromolecule that mediates the actions of endogenous and exogenous ligands, leading to a biological response.

What is an enzyme?

A type of protein that acts as a biological catalyst, speeding up specific chemical reactions without being consumed.

What is the purpose of a ligand binding assay?

To determine the affinity of a drug by measuring how well it binds to its target receptor.

Define pharmacotherapeutics.

The uses of drugs and the methods of their administration in treating disease.

What is the Cheng-Prusoff equation used for?

To convert IC50 values to Kd values for a ligand-receptor pair that are independent of the labelled ligand concentration.