Overview
This Assigntement will involve a review and analysis of pharmacological, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic action of a current drug to demonstrate your application of skills for explaining and analyzing drug action.
So far in this course, we have reviewed a number of signal transduction systems involved in maintaining the health of a cell. We now will begin to understand where a drug might act to correct an unhealthy state. To do this, I would like you to select your 'favorite' drug--a drug which you would like to know much more about, and tell me why you chose it!
Your goal is to provide an analysis of your 'favorite' drug and its actions, and you must include a discussion of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects of this drug. Your analysis should include (but not be restricted to) the following:
- why you are interested in the drug
- disease conditions it is used to treat
- other distinct drugs and/or therapies for the disease conditions
- drug structure, source and manufacture of the drug
- how the drug was originally identified as useful in this application
- related drugs and ligands and their relative affinities/efficacies/potencies
- consideration of the in vivo and in vitro assays used
- pharmacology (clinical and experimental)
- known drug targets
- mechanisms of drug action (agonist, antagonist, inhibitor, etc)
- organ system effects
- side effects
- proposed mechanisms of side effects
- pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects
Remember: this is a Molecular Pharmacology course, so I am expecting discussion of the molecules & molecular interactions involved, in molecular pharmacological terms!
You should present your analysis in a professionally written report, and please work on the assignment alone, provide references for your answers, and provide answers in your own words. Unreferenced quoted passages and/or paraphrasing will not be acceptable. Use more than one reference for your analysis, which might include your text, PubMed on the NCBI site, and other relevant articles, textbooks, or websites. Include reference numbers/author names within the text, so that it is clear which reference you are referring to in your discussion.
Consider including a diagram of the drug's molecular mechanism of action or its pharmacology.
Note: Depending on the drug you choose, you may not be able to provide all the above information, as it is not known at this time, so you will not receive less credit for this.
It is recommended that you consider using in-text referencing/citations for clarity, such as the Harvard or APA styles. Harvard example:
When presenting ideas or information from a source, include the author’s surname and date of publication in brackets within the text of your writing, e.g., These skills need to be developed over time (Veit & Gould, 2010).
Where you refer to the author’s name in the body of the text, include the date of publication in brackets, e.g. Young, Rudin-Brown, and Lenne (2010) suggest increased penalties and driver education as two possible strategies.
When quoting directly from the source, include the page number if available and place quotation marks around the quote, e.g. The World Health Organisation (2011, p. 8) defines driver distraction as a situation in which an external triggering event shifts the driver's attention away from the driving task.