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Research
Areas > Current Project >
FAQ
Ansewrs from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What is medicinal
chemistry?
What is
chemotherapy?
What is oncology?
What is cancer?
What is tumor?
What is drug?
What
iscytostatik drug?
What is drug delivery?
What is a drug carrier?
What is prodrug?
What is in vivo?
What is in vitro?
What is a macromolecule?
What is albumin?
What is
human serum albumin?
What is apoptosis?
What is SAR?
What is MDR?
What is NF-κB?
What is Pgp?
What is Camptothecin (CPT)?
What is dox?
What is taxen?
What
is Taxol?
What is
sesquiterpene lactone?
What is spacer?
What is
dendrimer
What is
plasmin?
What is
cathepsin?
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What is medicinal chemistry?
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Medicinal or pharmaceutical
chemistry is a highly interdisciplinary science combining organic
chemistry with pharmacy, biochemistry and many other branches of science.
Medicinal chemistry involves the design, synthesis, identification and
development of new chemical entities suitable for therapeutic use
(pharmaceutical drugs).
It also includes study of existing drugs, their
biological properties, and their quantitative structure-activity
relationships the (QSAR). Pharmaceutical chemistry is focused on quality
aspects of medicines and aims to assure fitness for the purpose of
medicinal products.
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What is chemotherapy?
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Chemotherapy is the use of chemical substances to treat disease.
In its modern-day use, it refers primarily to cytotoxic drugs used to treat
cancer.
In its non-oncological use, the term may also refer
to antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy). In that sense, the
first modern chemotherapeutic agent was Paul Ehrlich's arsphenamine, an
arsenic compound discovered in 1909 and used to treat syphilis.
Anther example is the penicillin G discovered by
Alexander Fleming.
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What is oncology?
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Oncology is the branch of medicine that studies tumors
(cancer) and seeks to understand their development, diagnosis, treatment
and prevention.
A physician who practices oncology is an oncologist.
The term originates from the Greek onkos meaning bulk, mass, or
tumor and the suffix -ology, meaning "study of".
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What is cancer?
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Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by
uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either
by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by
implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells
are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). Cancer may
affect people at all ages, but risk tends to increase with age. It is one
of the principal causes of death in.
Most cancers can be treated and some cured, depending
on the specific type, location, and stage. Once diagnosed, cancer is
usually treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and
radiotherapy.
As research develops, treatments are becoming more
specific for the type of cancer pathology. Drugs that target specific
cancers already exist for several types of cancer. If untreated, cancers
may eventually cause illness and death, though this is not always the case.
The unregulated growth that characterizes cancer is
caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode for
proteins controlling cell division.
Many mutation events may be required to transform a
normal cell into a malignant cell. These mutations can be caused by
radiation, chemicals or physical agents that cause cancer, which are called
carcinogens. Additionally, many forms of cancer are associated with
exposure to environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, radiation,
alcohol, and certain viruses. Some risk factors can be avoided or reduced.
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What is tumor?
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Tumor or tumour (via Old French tumour
from Latin tumor "swelling") is primarily used to denote abnormal
growth of tissue. This growth can be either malignant or benign. It is
similar in meaning to a neoplasm. For malignant tumors specifically, see
cancer.
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What is drug?
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A drug
is any chemical or biological
substance, synthetic or non-synthetic, that when taken into the organism's
body, will in some way alter the functions of that organism.
This broad definition can be taken to include such substances
as food. In these cases the word "drug" is usually used to refer
specifically to medicine. Many natural substances such as beers, wines blur
the line between food and drugs, as when ingested they affect the
functioning of both mind and
body.
Drugs are usually distinguished from endogenous
biochemicals (substances originate from within an organism) by being
introduced from outside the organism.
For example, insulin is a hormone that is synthesized
in the body; it is called a hormone when it is synthesized by the pancreas
inside the body, but if it is introduced into the body from outside, it is
called a drug.
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What is cytostatik drug?
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Cytostatic drugs (or Cytostatika, from the Greek Cyto
= cell and statics = continue) are natural or synthetic substances, which
restrain cell growth and/or the cell division.
They are used particularly for the treatment of
cancer (chemotherapy). Beside the classical cytostatic drugs, further
substances as hormones, therapeutic monoclonal anti-bodies and so-called
“small molecules" as proteasome inhibitors are used nowadays for the
treatment of tumor illnesses.
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What is drug delivery?
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Drug delivery is a term that refers to the delivery of a
pharmaceutical compound to humans or animals. Most common methods of delivery
include the preferred non-invasive oral (through the mouth), nasal,
pneumonial (inhalation) and rectal routes.
Many medications, however, can not be delivered using
these routes because they might be susceptible to degradation or are not
incorporated efficiently. For this reason many protein and peptide drugs
have to be delivered by injection. For example, many immunizations are
based on the delivery of protein drugs and are often done by injection.
Current efforts in the area of drug delivery include
the development of targeted delivery in which the drug is only active in
the target area of the body (for example, in cancerous tissues) and
sustained release formulations in which the drug is released over a period
of time in a controlled manner from a formulation.
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What is a drug carrier?
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Drug carriers are substances that serve as mechanisms to improve the
delivery and the effectiveness of drugs. Drug carriers are used in sundry
drug delivery systems such as:
·
controlled-release
technology to prolong in vivo drug actions;
·
decrease drug
metabolism, and
·
reduce drug toxicity.
Carriers are also used in designs to increase the
effectiveness of drug delivery to the target sites of pharmacological
actions.
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What is a prodrug?
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A prodrug
is a pharmacological substance (drug) which is administered in an inactive
(or significantly less active) form. Once administered, the prodrug is
metabolised in vivo into the active compound.
An example of prodrug: Chloramphenicol succinate ester is used as
intravenous prodrug of chloramphenicol, because pure chloramphenicol does
not dissolve in water.
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What is in vivo?
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In vivo (Latin:
(with)in the living) means that
which takes place inside an organism. In science, in vivo refers
to experimentation done in or on the living tissue of a whole, living
organism as opposed to a partial or dead one.
Animal testing and clinical trials are forms of in
vivo research.
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What is in vitro?
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In vitro (Latin:
(with)in the glass) refers to the technique of performing a given
experiment in a test tube, or, generally, in a controlled environment
outside a living organism.
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What is a macromolecule?
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The literal definition of the term macromolecule implies any large
molecule. In the context of science and engineering, the term may be
applied to conventional polymers and biopolymers (such as DNA) as well as
non-polymeric molecules with large molecular mass such as lipids or
macrocycles. However, other large networks of atoms, such as metallic
covalent networks or fullerenes, are not generally described as
macromolecules.
The use of the term macromolecule varies subtly from discipline
to discipline. From the strict perspective of chemistry, a
"molecule" comprises a number of atoms linked by covalent bonds.
In biology and biochemistry, however, the term macromolecule may refer to
aggregates of two or more macromolecules held together by intermolecular
forces rather than covalent bonds but which do not readily dissociate.
According to the recommended IUPAC definition the
term macromolecule as used in polymer science refers only to a single molecule.
For example, a single polymeric molecule is appropriately described as a
"macromolecule" or "polymer molecule" rather than a
"polymer", which suggests a substance composed of macromolecules.
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What is albumin?
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Albumin (Latin: albus, white) refers generally to any
protein with water solubility, which is moderately soluble in concentrated
salt solutions, and experiences heat coagulation (protein denaturation: denaturation is the alteration of
a protein shape through some form of external stress [for example, by
applying heat, acid or alkali], in such a way that it will no longer be
able to carry out its cellular function.).
Substances containing albumin, such as egg white, are
called albuminoids.
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What is human serum albumin?
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Human serum albumin is the
most abundant protein in human blood plasma. It is produced in the liver.
The reference range for albumin concentrations in blood is 30 to 50 g/L
(3.0 to 5.0 g/dL). It has a serum half-life of approximately 20 days. It
has a molecular mass of 67 kDa.
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What is SAR?
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Structure-activity
relationship (SAR) is the traditional practices of
medicinal chemistry which try to modify the effect or the potency {ie. activity} of bioactive chemical compound by
modifying its chemical structure.
Medicinal chemists were using the chemical techniques
of synthesis to insert new chemical groups into the biomedical compound and
test the modifications in its biological effect. This process enabled them
to determine the responsible chemical groups for evoking the biological
effect in the organism.
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What is MDR?
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Multidrug resistance is the ability of pathologic cells to withstand
chemicals that are designed to aid in the eradication of such cells. These
pathologic cells include bacterial and neoplastic (tumor) cells. Cancer
cells also have the ability to become resistant to multiple different
drugs, and share many of the same mechanisms:
·
Increased efflux of drug
(as by P-glycoprotein, multidrug resistance-associated protein, lung
resistance related protein, and breast cancer resistance protein)
·
Enzymatic deactivation
(i.e. glutathione conjugation)
·
Decreased permeability
(drugs can't enter the cell)
·
Altered binding-sites
·
Alternate metabolic
pathways (the cancer compensates for the effect of the drug).
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What is Pgp?
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P-glycoprotein (abbreviated as P-gp or Pgp) is
a well characterized human ABC-transporter (ATP-binding cassette)
of the MDR/TAP (Transporter associated with antigen processing) subfamily.
It is extensively distributed and expressed in normal
cells such as those lining the intestine, liver cells, renal proximal
tubular cells and capillary endothelial cells comprising the blood-brain
barrier. P-gp is also called ABCB1, ATP-binding cassette sub-family B
member 1, MDR1, P-glycoprotein and PGY1.
A frequent cause of drug resistance results from an
elevated expression of the cell-membrane transporter efflux pump Pgp that functions by increasing the efflux of cytotoxic drugs from cancer cells and allows them to
survive by lowering the intracellular concentrations of the drugs. A lot of
specific P-gp modulators have been developed in
order to circumvent MDR:
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What is Camptothecin (CPT)?
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Camptothecin is a plant secondary metabolite used as an anti-cancer
drug that damages DNA, leading to the destruction of the cell.
It comes
from Camptotheca acuminata, a deciduous tree found in southern China. Stem
woods of Nothopodytes foetida (previously known as Mappia foetida)
found in the western ghats of India are an even better source
of camptothecin.
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What is
Doxorubicin (dox)?
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Doxorubicin (trade name Adriamycin)
or hydroxyldaunorubicin is a
DNA-interacting drug widely used in chemotherapy. It is an anthracycline
antibiotic and structurely closely related to daunomycin, and also
intercalates DNA. It is commonly used in the treatment of a wide range of
cancers.
The drug
is administered by injection, and may be sold under the brand names Adriamycin PFS, Adriamycin RDF,
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or Rubex. Doxil is a liposome-encapsulated dosage form of doxorubicin
made by Ben Venue Laboratories for Johnson & Johnson. The main benefits
of this form are a reduction in cardiotoxicity.
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What is taxane?
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The taxanes are diterpenes produced
by the plants of the genus Taxus (yews). As their name suggests,
they were first derived from natural sources, but some have been
synthesized artificially. Taxanes include paclitaxel and docetaxel.
Paclitaxel was originally derived from the Pacific yew tree. Taxanes have
been used to produce various chemotherapy drugs.
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What is Taxol?
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Paclitaxel is a drug used in the treatment of cancer. It was discovered
at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in 1967 when Monroe E. Wall and
Mansukh C. Wani isolated the compound from the bark of the Pacific yew
tree, Taxus brevifolia, and noted its antitumor activity in a broad range
of rodent tumors. By 1970, the two scientists had determined the structure
of paclitaxel. Paclitaxel has since become an effective tool of doctors who
treat patients with lung, ovarian, breast cancer, and advanced forms of
tumors. .
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It is sold
under the trade name Taxol.
Together with docetaxel, it forms the drug category of the taxanes.
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What is spacer?
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A Molecular spacer or simply a spacer in chemistry is any
flexible part of a molecule providing a connection between two other parts
of a molecule.
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What is dendrimer?
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Dendrimers are repeatedly branched molecules.
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What is sesquiterpene lactone?
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Sesquiterpene lactones are a class of chemical found in many plants that can
cause allergic reactions. Some plants containing these compounds are:
Artichoke.
Sesquiterpenes are a class of terpenes that consist of three
isoprene units and have the molecular formula C15H24.
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isoprene
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Like monoterpenes
(monoterpenes are a class of
terpenes that consist of two isoprene units and have the molecular formula
C10H16), sesquiterpenes may be acyclic or contain
rings, including many unique combinations.
A lactone is a cyclic ester in
organic chemistry
Terpenes are a large and varied class of hydrocarbons,
produced primarily by a wide variety of plants, particularly conifers,
though also by some insects such as swallowtail butterflies.
Terpenes
are derived biosynthetically from units of isoprene, which has the
molecular formula C5H8. The basic molecular formulas
of terpenes are multiples of that, (C5H8)n
where n is the number of linked isoprene units. This is called the isoprene
rule or the C5 rule.
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What is NF-κB?
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NF-κB (nuclear
factor-kappa B) is a protein complex which is a transcription factor*. It is found in all
cell types and is involved in cellular responses to stimuli such as stress,
cytokines, free radicals, ultraviolet irradiation, and bacterial or viral
antigens. NF-κB plays a key role in
regulating the immune response to infection. Consistent with this role,
incorrect regulation of NF-κB has been
linked to cancer, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, septic shock, viral
infection and improper immune development. NF-κB
has also been implicated in processes of synaptic plasticity and memory.
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NF-κB is widely used by eukaryotic cells as a
regulator of genes that control cell proliferation and cell survival. As
such, many different types of human tumors have misregulated
NF-κB: that is, NF-κB
is constitutively active. Active NF-κB turns
on the expression of genes that keep the cell proliferating and protect the
cell from conditions that would otherwise cause it to die. In tumor cells,
NF-κB is active either due to mutations in
genes encoding the NF-κB transcription
factors themselves or in genes that control NF-κB
activity (such as IkB genes); in addition, some
tumor cells secrete factors that cause NF-κB
to become active.
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NF-κB's Role in Cancer and Other
Diseases
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Blocking
NF-κB can cause tumor cells to stop
proliferating, to die, or to become more sensitive to the action of
anti-tumor agents. Thus, NF-κB is the
subject of much active research among pharmaceutical companies as a target
for anti-cancer therapy.
Because
NF-κB controls many genes involved in
inflammation, it is not surprising that NF-κB
is found to be chronically active in many inflammatory diseases, such as
inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis, sepsis, among others.
Many
natural products (including anti-oxidants) that have been promoted to have
anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activity have also been shown to inhibit
NF-κB. Additionally, a lot of work has been
done to develop agents that can block NF-κB
for therapeutic purposes.
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* Transcription factor is a protein
that works in concert with other proteins to either promote or suppress the
transcription**of
genes.
** Transcription is the process
through which a DNA sequence is enzymatically
copied by an RNA polymerase to produce a complementary RNA.
In other
words, it is the transfer of genetic information from DNA into RNA.
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What is apoptosis?
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Apoptosis is a process of deliberate life relinquishment by a
cell in a multicellular organism. It is one of the main types of programmed
cell death (PCD), and involves an orchestrated series of biochemical events
leading to a characteristic cell morphology (outward appearance [shape,
structure, color and pattern] and component parts) and death.
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The
apoptotic process is executed in such a way as to safely dispose of cell
corpses and fragments.
It is to a
certain extent „a suicide program of “individual biological cells. This can
be influenced from the outside lively (approximately by immune cells) or
due to cell internal processes to be released (for instance after strong
damage of the heiress formation).
Apoptosis
is carried out in an orderly process that generally confers advantages
during an organism's life cycle. Research on apoptosis has increased and
defective apoptotic processes have been implicated in an extensive variety
of diseases including cancer.
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What is plasmin?
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Plasmin is an important enzyme (EC 3.4.21.7) present in
blood that degrades many blood plasma proteins, most notably fibrin clots.
The degradation of fibrin is termed fibrinolysis.
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What is cathepsin?
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A cathepsin is one of a family of
proteases, a type of protein that breaks apart other proteins, found in
many types of cells including those in all animals. There are approximately
a dozen members of this family, which are distinguished by their structure
and which proteins they cleave. Most of the members become activated at the
low pH found in lysosomes. Thus, the activity of this family lies almost
entirely within those organelles.
Cathepsins
have a vital role in mammalian cellular turnover, e.g. bone resorption.
They degrade polypeptides and are distinguished by their substrate
specificites.
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