/r/pharmacology

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News, peer-reviewed academic articles, and discussion of pharmacology & toxicology, with a particular focus on new drugs.

News, peer-reviewed academic articles, and discussion of pharmacology & toxicology, with a particular focus on new drugs.

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/r/pharmacology

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9

Do drugs (weak acidic drugs) that get absorbed in the stomach still experience the first pass metabolism?

I know drugs that get absorbed thru the small intestine are transported to the liver by the portal system where it experiences first pass metabolism. But I’m not sure what happens to drugs that pass through the membranes in the stomach

2 Comments
2024/12/05
00:08 UTC

0

Can bupropion dampen lsd?

There seems to be nothing on this subject, but since lsd is a dopamine partial agonist and bupropion is a dopamine/norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, shouldn't it have a similar effect as SSRI's and lsd as one is a serotonin partial agonist and one a reuptake inhibitor? (This combo is known to dampen the psychedelic effect). Thanks in advance! (The serotonin aspect would still work either way leading do a psychedelic experience, Im just wondering is the dopamine-specific effects would be affected)

3 Comments
2024/12/04
14:41 UTC

3

Industrial pharmacist

I’m planning on getting a pharmd (school offers a research track) and want to break into industrial pharma afterwards. I love pharmaceutical science however the school I’m studying in only offers biochemistry or chemistry. Additionally I feel like the pharmd with a 2+4 track is the fastest way to be done with school and start research/ work full time. Any recommendations? Is this a realistic career path if I eventually want to work in industrial laboratories/ manufacturing plants?

4 Comments
2024/12/04
04:19 UTC

1

Doing research with Pharmd

Next year I plan on starting pharmacy school. I was enrolled in a 2+4 program at my school so I won’t be getting a bachelor degree. What are the chances of after finishing my pharmd in on a research track (offered by my school) that I could get into a research position. additionally if I can’t get a research position could I go back to school and get a masters or PhD in pharmaceutical science or would I have to get the undergrad degree first?

6 Comments
2024/12/02
07:47 UTC

1

Career help

Going to graduate soon in Ireland with a pharmacology degree but can’t help but feel like I’ve made a massive mistake, I can’t find any jobs at all, I have a 2.1 and have applied to so many roles and no response. I don’t know what they want a msc? The salaries are awful ~30k at best, (my current retail job pays the same). I really wanted to work a bit before doing a masters as I don’t have the money and cannot live at home with my parents any longer. Have I made a mistake or can anyone tell me what kind of postgrad training roles companies have or when to apply? Our lecturers all told us there’s a bright future in pharmacology but I am really not seeing it. Where are people even looking for jobs ? There’s Pfizer the HPRA (both rejected ) and what else ??? Every single pharma company wants engineers only on their job descriptions

10 Comments
2024/12/02
04:31 UTC

0

Summer research for international student in US

Hi everyone! I'm currently a third-year international student studying Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry in Scotland. I'm planning to apply for a PhD program in US, so I’m looking for summer research opportunities to strengthen my background.

The problem is many US summer research programs don’t accept international students, so I’m wondering if anyone knows of programs in pharmacology or pharmaceutical sciences that would be a good fit for me.

Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

0 Comments
2024/12/01
21:20 UTC

1

Interview Prepration for PHD

Hi I am planning to pursue PHD in pharmacology, I have applied to few universities and looking to start my preparations for interviews, can I please get some suggestions on how should I do preparations and how can I get selected into universities. I have 2 years of work ex and ongoing MS in pharmacology and toxicology.

0 Comments
2024/12/02
01:32 UTC

3

4-Fluorophenibut lab test

I’m working with a psychiatrist and he’s interested in writing a paper on a patient who claims to use this drug, however he couldn’t find what lab tests for it (and has since tasked me for finding where to test it). I tried my universities test directory, and other major hospital test directories in my region, but couldn’t find anything.

Where would I look next? I also just tried Google “4-Fluorophenibut test” and other related terms, but still didn’t find anything. It looks to be a pretty rare drug, so not a lot of relevant literature on it either. Is there a center I can call, where they would know where to order a test from?

3 Comments
2024/11/27
20:05 UTC

8

Is melatonin suppression from beta blockers happening regardless of the timing of administration?

Is the sleep disturbance caused by melatonin suppression when taking beta blockers only an issue when the beta blockers are in effect (such as the 4h time for 10mg Propanolol dosage), or can it cause disruption regardless of what time of the day they're ingested?

1 Comment
2024/11/26
07:06 UTC

1

Does anyone know a good PK course that they’d recommend?

I’m not looking for basic PK like on coursera but a full PK course that’s 10 hrs or longer with calculations. Thanks!

2 Comments
2024/11/25
17:24 UTC

2

Can all quinone containing xenoniotics undergo redox cycling? What enzymes facilitate the oxidation of phenols/catechols to quinones? What ultimately stops the redox cycling caused by quinones?

Just a bit curious. I'm a layperson with no formal education, so if these are bizarre questions or if they're just making bad assumptions, I apologize.

Reading about a number of drugs like monobenzone, doxorubicin, apap, etc. that undergo redox cycling after seeing it in a book. I read a paper about treating melanoma with 4-(4-Phenylbuta-1,3-dienyl)benzene-1,2-diol, which is similar to monobenzone in that it goes through tyrosinase to form a quinone, which can deplete glutathione below a critical level and kill the cell. How can I find more information about what enzymes catalyze what reactions, and how the backbone of a compound can change that despite having the same functional groups?

I've read monobenzone can also haptenate proteins. Other than for treating melanoma or vitiligo, what other drugs undergo redox cycling in a way that is therapeutic or contributes to side effects? If they can seemingly constantly regenerate, how does that process finally come to an end?

0 Comments
2024/11/23
23:51 UTC

2

Pharmaceutical Sciences PhD Rankings

I'm looking to get my PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences. When looking at school rankings, I'm having a hard time figuring out how these programs specifially ranks. Should I be looking at Pharmacy School rankings, which is where this PhD program typically is located, or should I be just look at PhD in Pharmacology rankings? I have noticed some similarities in these rankings, but also a lot of differences so I wasn't sure.

3 Comments
2024/11/21
18:18 UTC

2

Lost and need career advice

Hi, I have been working in clinical research as a CRA since graduating undergrad 2 years ago. I feel stuck and have been thinking of career changes, but I’m not sure where to begin. Where has your pharmacology background taken you?

0 Comments
2024/11/21
17:36 UTC

8

Clonazepam chemical name

I’ve been curious and unable to get an answer to the following question on several other Reddit subs, so I thought I’d post it here.

Clonazepam is a nitrobenzodiazepine, and as I understand it, a chlorinated analogue of nitrazepam. As such, would the chemical name “clonitrazepam” be just as correct?

It would seem, following other patterns of benzodiazepine chemical names, that clonitrazepam would be more accurate. Perhaps clonazepam is what was chosen and is just slightly truncated for convenience?

4 Comments
2024/11/20
19:05 UTC

4

Masters, get a job and do a part time PhD— is it a good idea?

I’m currently debating between pharmacology or pharmaceuticals science… but I was wondering if I did a master, get an entry level job and do a part time PhD, would that be wise?

Also I’m conflicted between the two based on salary at the end of the PhD. I love researching the effects of drugs and also heading towards wanting to eventually develop drugs (still debating). What would you advise has a better “return of investment” with career and salary?

if I did a part time PhD, I could also work part time im assuming? I wouldn’t want to do a full time PhD just because of how low stipends are and would love to gain experience in the field before/during it.

4 Comments
2024/11/16
18:48 UTC

1

IC50

So I read that IC50 is the concentration of the drug which reduces the maximum response is reduced by half. But I was wondering how this reduction happens(in other words what type of drug would be relevant here). I’m guessing antagonists? Perhaps partial agonists or inverse agonists as well? As these types of ligands will shift the conformation state of the receptor from active to inactive

1 Comment
2024/11/13
16:16 UTC

10

Conflicting Definitions of Drug Absorption

This might be a really stupid question. I'm taking a pharmacology class and my professor uses "absorption" to mean the passive diffusion or active transport of a drug across a cell membrane. She seems to delineate water solubility (and therefore ionization, H bonding) and absorption as two separate, inversely-related things. She has also mentioned how absorption directly influences pharmacological activity; this confuses me, however, because if that's the case, then why would absorption across cell membranes matter for a drug whose target is a cell surface protein, like GPCRs? This question is particularly breaking my brain. Is she specifically referring to absorption across the gastric epithelium, and then into the bloodstream? If that's the case, then how does that logic still apply to other routes of administration like IV, where it's delivered directly into circulation? Thank you for any help. I think I may be overthinking this.

3 Comments
2024/11/12
02:49 UTC

1

Pharmacokinetics-clearance

Hello everyone. So the textbook "The pharmacological basis of therapeutics" states:" With first- order kinetics, clearance CL will vary with the concentration of drug (C), often according to the equation: CL=Vm/Km+C , where Km represents the concentration at which half the maximum rate of elimination is reached (in units of mass/volume) and Vm is equal to the maximum rate of elimination (in units of mass/time)." How is this a first order kinetics equation ? I thought clearance remained constant regardless of drug concentration in first order kinetics .Thank you in advance for answering.

4 Comments
2024/11/05
16:46 UTC

4

Does ammonia chloride have a low therapeutic index?

ammonia chloride is commonly used for amphetamine overdose since it can acidify the basic drug but I read that it isn't used clinically due to its potential to easily produce toxic acidosis. Does this mean it has a low therapeutic index?

2 Comments
2024/11/03
19:23 UTC

6

Suboxone vs. Methadone

Hello!

I recently learned about suboxone and methadone in my clinical medicine class, but still feel like I don’t have a great grasp on it. Can someone please tell me the difference between suboxone and methadone besides suboxone having a ceiling effect and being a partial agonist while methadone is a full agonist, and that methadone is administered by an opioid treatment center while suboxone is prescribed? Also are both of these drugs forbidden to be taken by individuals with certain occupations, ie pilots? Any additional info you think would be helpful is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

11 Comments
2024/10/30
00:49 UTC

1

Help converting DPM to mol

Hi I just started a new course in pharmacology but I realized I lack a lot of pre-requisite knowledge for calculations and I’m stuck on converting DPM to mol. I’ve attempted it but don’t think I’ve done it correctly yet. I first took the DPM and divided it by 2.22 x 10^12 to give me the value in Ci. Then to gain moles from the Ci I divided the Ci value by the specific activity to give me the value in mmol. Is this correct? Thank you :)

1 Comment
2024/10/29
10:26 UTC

9

Question about saturation ligand binding

Pharmacology student here. I have been giving this data set from a saturation ligand binding study and need to produce a scatchard plot. Can anyone explain to me why the first row of data reads 0 and if I am okay to plot this but essentially ignore it when drawing a line of best fit.

The reason I ask is if I ignore the 0 when creating the straight line it almost perfectly matches my Kd and Bmax values for the nonlinear curve graph I’ve already done. But if I include the 0 it distorts it quite heavily and it is wildly different.

If I can’t ignore the 0 can someone give me an explanation I can write as to why the values from the 2 different graphs differ?

Thanks!!

2 Comments
2024/10/27
18:35 UTC

5

Got a question related to pharmacodynamics

Hello! I'm a first year medical student and have a pharmacodynamics-related question. In the context of non-competitive antagonism, what happens to the value of EC50 in the presence or absence of spare receptors? Some resources say it remains unchanged, while others say it will either increase or decrease. My lecture slides say that EC50 will increase in both the presence and absence of spare receptors but that does not make any sense.

2 Comments
2024/10/26
14:56 UTC

7

Dependence of renal clearance on urine flow

Hi, med student here.
I came across some plots from this article. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the full version, so the answer to my question may be in there.
These plots show a linear dependence between urine flow (X-axis) and renal clearance (Y-axis) of ethanol and butabarbital. In the case of urea and chloramphenicol, the function is represented by a branch of a hyperbola.

I don’t understand the kinetics in the case of urea. Since urea reaches the lumen by passive diffusion, I would have expected a linear relationship without a plateau. Additionally, considering the reabsorption process, I would have expected a slow increase in clearance at low urine flow due to the higher gradient between the lumen and the plasma.
Where’s the snag?

1 Comment
2024/10/20
15:55 UTC

5

EU Reference Drug (Medicine) List

Hi! I am a Pharmacist in working in R+D of generic drugs. Just wondering if there's any Regulatory Affairs Specialist from the EU (Including the UK) here to make a question about References medicines. Is there an official list with the reference drug for a medicinal product like the FDA's Orange Book (The reference drug is called Reference Listed Drug or RLD). The request is because I need resources to create protocols for Bioequivalence studies (in vivo and biowaivers). I've been looking for this but no result, also I verified in the EMA page and other agencies.

Thanks in advance.

2 Comments
2024/10/19
13:24 UTC

11

Pharmacology Career Questions

Hello Everybody! I'm currently a High School Senior in the States looking to get into Pharmacology. I was fortunate to get a job as a pharmacy technician for the past year and have fallen in love with the field. Specifically, how medications work and affect the body. However, I also witnessed how exhausting retail pharmacy can be, especially for the pharmacists. Currently, I'm in between Pharmacy(Hospital or residency) and Pharmacology but feel I don't know enough about the Pharmacology pathway.

First, what's the career like for a pharmacologist? Is it purely in a laboratory setting or are there other workplaces available? I've also seen a lot of programs offering what is pharmacology/toxicology. In the workplace, is there a major difference between the two?

Second, can you specialize in a specific field in pharmacology? Can you specialize in something such as neuropharmacology? Would I need a degree in neuroscience as well? Any recommendations for an aspiring pharmacologist going into college?

Hopefully this type of question is allowed here and I appreciate any info or answers!

7 Comments
2024/10/18
07:58 UTC

4

Thinking of Applying for PhD in Pharmacology

Hello, my bachelors was in biological anthropology, and I’m currently a biomedical anthropology MS student working in a lab in the pharmaceutical sciences department at my current university in addiction genetics with mouse models. I was wondering if anyone has:

  1. any general advice for me on applying to pharmacology PhDs (ex. do you generally reach out to professors, how did you format your SOPs, what considerations did you have for universities on your short list, how did you decide on a university, what did you do if you didn’t get in, etc.)
  2. any specific advice/knowledge on the programs I’m listing below (ex. I heard from the chair of pharmacy here that UBuffalo is well-known for pharmacokinetics but obviously it’s not described as such on their website)
  3. job prospects for PhD holders going into industry
  4. A very specific consideration: I had a dip in my undergraduation transcript around COVID due to untreated mental health issues, but my junior and senior year plus my graduate transcript are all As and Bs. Is it acceptable to mention mental health in my SOPs to explain my grade dip, and if not how do I approach that?

My shortlist I’m considering are:

  • MCPHS
  • Boston University
  • UMich (PIBS)
  • Binghamton University
  • PennState (Translational Therapeutics)

I originally had UWash, UBuffalo, and Northeastern on the list, but have personal considerations for cutting them. If someone convinces me that my considerations are lesser than the pros, I might apply.

2 Comments
2024/10/17
20:10 UTC

3

MSc for Patent Attorney

Hi all

I’ve completed my BSc in Pharmacology and my career aspiration is to become a patent attorney within the pharmaceutical field.

I’m going to do an MSc next year but unsure which MSc course to do. Are there any fields within life sciences that you think there will be a strong demand for patent attorney’s in the future? Or MSc’s that will make me an attractive candidate for training contracts?

I’m currently looking at MSc’s in Pharmacology, Immunology, Virology, Stem Cells and Neuroscience.

TIA!

2 Comments
2024/10/17
10:48 UTC

2

Masters in Pharmacology after MBBS

I will be completing my MBBS next year, but instead of pursuing clinical specialties to work in a hospital setting, I am passionate about pharmacology. My goal is to either become a professor in this field or work in the pharmaceutical industry. However, I have realized that many advanced pharmacology programs require a background in mathematics, which I did not focus on during my undergraduate studies. I am seeking guidance on how best to bridge this gap and fulfill the necessary requirements. Specifically in the USA

8 Comments
2024/10/16
16:54 UTC

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