Drug discovery and molecular mechanisms of drug action
What is a vaccine? A vaccine may be described as medicine that stimulates an immune response with a “memory.” Many people also consider a vaccine to be a medicine that prevents a disease caused by a pathogen. Indeed, the first vaccines were ones that prevented infectious diseases, such as polio and measles. Some vaccines have … Read more
Toxicity to healthy cells limits the usefulness of conventional chemotherapeutic agents. These drugs kill rapidly dividing cells of all types, not just those in a tumor. In addition to dividing rapidly, some cancer cells establish metastases that have a different stiffness than the surrounding tissue. This mechanical property of a cellular microenvironment is referred to … Read more
Lyme disease is caused by bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi, Borrelia afzelii, and Borrelia garinii) that are delivered by a bite from an infected tick (Figure 1). The Centers for Disease Control (1) recommend a preventative (prophylactic) single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline for adults bitten by a mosquito with a high probability of carrying the Lyme-causing … Read more
A recent conversation inspired me to start the series: “In case you were wondering.” This is the first post in the series. We were discussing how people can exhibit different sensitivities to medicines, either the desired effect or side effects. The example that my relative used was the difference in children’s responses to local anesthetics, … Read more
Overcoming side effects and toxicity of currently FDA-approved is possible. Sometimes combining multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action lets doctors use less of each drug to achieve the desired effect and limit or avoid off-target or dose-limiting effects. This is a common strategy used for anesthesia. Doctors give a “cocktail” of drugs with different … Read more