• Question: what your favrate drug

    Asked by 356drug42 to Eleni, Hannah, Jenny, Oli, Steven on 9 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by 643drug42.
    • Photo: Steven Street

      Steven Street answered on 9 Nov 2016:

      Hi 356drug42,

      I think my favourite drug is imatinib (also known as gleevec).

      It’s an anti-cancer drug made by Novartis that is used to treat leukemia and other cancers. It was the world’s first tyrosine kinase inhibitor, and works by binding to a tyrisine kinase enzyme in place of ATP. it inhibits a single enzyme – BCR-Abl that is only present in cancer cells (not healthy cells), and was therefore the worlds first ever targeted cancer therapy.

      People thought for a long time that it would be impossible to make a drug that could selectively inhibit a single tyrosine kinase enzyme, as there are so many inside humans, and they all have the same binding site for ATP…. Novartis proved them all wrong.

      This drug and others like it were responsible for basically doubling the survival rate for leukemia patients since it’s release in 2001.

      I think it’s such an impressive feat, and just goes to show what we are capable of achieving if we work together. I spent 3 months in Novartis last year, and was working in the same building as the guy who first discovered imatinib!!

      Do you have a favourite drug?

      Steve

    • Photo: Hannah Bolt

      Hannah Bolt answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Hi 356drug42

      I think penicillin is a very interesting drug. It was one of the first antibiotics to be discovered (it was found in 1928 by a famous scientist called Alexander Flemming, you might have heard of him?) and kills different bacteria.

      The drug works by stopping bacteria from building cell walls around themselves (a cell wall is a little bit like the skin for humans). The drug was actually discovered by accident! Mr Flemming was growing bacteria, and noticed a mould growing in with his bacteria and around the mould no bacteria could grow. This mould was producing penicillin. Over the past 70 years, penicillin must have saved millions of lives and that’s why it’s my favorite drug.

      Unfortunately penicillin is becoming less effective now, because the bacteria are getting used to the drugs we use against them – you might have heard of drug resistant bacteria, like MRSA? This is why it is so important for scientists to do research into new potential drugs!

      Hannah

    • Photo: Oliver Charity

      Oliver Charity answered on 11 Nov 2016:

      Hi there,

      I would say my favoutite drug is one used to treat African trypanosomes. These are tiny worm like cells which cause a deadly disease called sleeping sickness, and the treatment is called Melarsoprol – a drug so corrosive it used to be held in glass syringes!

      Its really interesting as it contains an arsenic compound and arsenic is famously used to poison people, but this compound kills the trypanosomes (worm-like cells) before damaging our cells, although people do get symptoms of arsenic poisoning.

      Oli

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