What type of chemistry is involved in pharmacy

A boy is carried in to hospital, barely able to breathe, wheezing and gasping. Only an hour later he walks back out as though nothing had happened. How could he be so ill one minute and walking the next? The answer was an injection of adrenaline that relaxed the bronchial muscles and opened the airways.

Before , adrenaline or ephedrine were used to treat asthma, and asthmatics suffered from serious side effects. From , this boy — my brother — was able to attend school more regularly and even play sport and we had no more middle of the night trips to hospital.

So what changed? And what does chemistry have to do with it? Worksheet exploring situations where chemistry helps us understand how different medicines work as MS Word or pdf. The introduction of the Ventolin inhaler in was the culmination of years of work, with chemists collaborating with doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pharmacologists and physiologists.

They reasoned that by modifying the chemical structure of adrenaline, they could develop a new drug that would last longer and reduce unwanted side-effects on the heart, while still being effective in the airways.

The active part of the salbutamol molecule the pharmacophore is very similar to that of adenaline. The functional groups that help it resist enzymatic breakdown are circled. The action of adrenaline is short lived because it is quickly broken down by an enzyme. Chemists, therefore, tried to synthesise chemicals that would be more resistant to enzymatic degradation.

They designed a range of compounds with modified structures that would not be able to fit into the active site of the enzyme. One of these, salbutamol trade name Ventolin , was the result and lasts for about four to six hours in the body. The additional functional groups affected the way salbutamol interacted with receptor proteins in the body.

It turned out that it could dilate the bronchi at much lower concentrations than it affected heart rate. The aim is to gain new chemical molecules that could enable the discovery of new pharmaceuticals or optimize already known drug structures, thereby to expand the portfolio of chemical drugs. Although organic chemistry plays a crucial role, only knowledgeable pharmaceutical chemists are able to work effectively in a highly interdisciplinary environment and interact with scientists in other disciplines, such as molecular biology, structural biology, pharmacology, physical chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacokinetics, pharmaceutical technology, toxicology or with experts from the field of translational medicine, etc.

The term pharmaceutical medicinal chemistry appeared first in the literature shortly after WW II. During the development of molecular pharmacology, it was possible to express the biological activity of any chemical compound by means of quantifiable molecular properties e. Pharmacology Pharmacology is the study of drugs. Pharmacy Pharmacy is a professional program for students wishing to become licensed pharmacists.

Request new password. This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. What is the Role of Chemistry in the Pharmaceutical Industry? Organic Chemistry Organic chemistry plays an important role in the pharmaceutical industry whereby knowledge of organic compounds is used to inform research and further the discovery, research and development of new medicines.

Computational Chemistry Computational chemistry is a speciality that contributes to the design of drugs as well as the drug discovery process by helping to design and study molecular structures and chemical compounds that are used as the foundation of new medicines.

Analytic Chemistry Analytical chemistry is an ideal background when working on pharmaceutical quality assurance and quality control due to this speciality having a breadth of knowledge that can be applied to ensuring the safety, stability, and efficacy of drugs and medicines.

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