Term
| It might be quicker to go from the idea of inhibiting HER2 to a drug by making the drug as an antibody than it would be to go from idea to making a conventional drug. Why? |
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Definition
As a conventional drug, it would not be able to circulate freely and would be degraded quickly. However, as an antibody, this is not an issue and the drug would be able to circulate and fuse to the HER2 receptor.
Not sure what this question is asking. |
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Term
| What is the oft-fatal adverse effect of Herceptin? What cancer drugs(remembering that Herceptin is a cancer drug) enhance the chances of this adverse effect? |
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Definition
a. The HER2 receptor has a normal role in the recovery of the heart. Herceptin, by binding the receptor, would blocks this recovery mechanism. This could be fatal to the patient.
b. Anthracyclines |
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Term
| What are the reasons biopharmaceuticals all have to be horrendously expensive? |
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Definition
| Most biopharmaceuticals require immense effort both in the design and in manufacturing the drug. This drives up the prices. |
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Term
| What would be one avenue to offering a less expensive drug that is very often taken for small molecule drugs, but is not yet avilable for biopharmaceuticals under today's laws and regulations? Why might it be a while before that route is available to biopharmaceuticals? |
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Definition
a. Biogenerics
b. Bioequivalence is much harder to show with biopharmaceuticals than with small molecule drugs. A protein has many conformations. There is far more in the way of contaminants and impurities to remove, and some estimate effort required is equivalent to original introduction. |
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Term
| What does the PCR accomplish? |
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Definition
| PCR amplifies a fragment of DNA, so there are lots of copies. It is used for DNA sequencing and cloning genes. |
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Term
| What does the making of transgenic animals accomplish? What do knockout animals help determine? What are key differences between the procedures to make transgenics and knockouts? |
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Definition
a. Transgenics is a way to study gene function and expressing a protein.
b. Knockout animals help determine the role of genes that have been sequenced by have unknown function.
c. In transgenics, you put the protein in an animal and study what happened in the animal. DNA is injected into a fertilized egg, incorporates into the host cell, and goes on to be expressed. In knockouts, DNA is put in embryonic stem cells. The cells are cultured which allows for more time to manipulate cells and do more complicated procedures. The stem cells are then propagated and genes can be replaced or deleted. Cells with a new arrangement are put in a blastocyte and inserted in the mother. This results in gene expression in every cell. |
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Term
| Describe the procedure for cloning animals. How does this differ from "therapeutic cloning"? |
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Definition
a. In cloning, you are trying to get a live animal with certain DNA. A skin cell is used, and just the nucleus is kept. A fertilized egg is then taken and the pronucleus is thrown out. The skin cell nucleus is then inserted in the fertilized egg and new DNA in the egg cell will produce an animal. The egg cell is then put in a mother, and the offspring that results has the genetics of the skin cell.
b. Therapeutic cloning involves culturing the cells and differentiating them into some cell type. The differentiated cells has the properties of the new cell type but it has the genetics of the cell that the DNA came from. It avoids rejection due to host graft disease. |
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Term
| What advantages do making a drug as a biopharmaceutical offer? |
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Definition
| Biopharmaceuticals allow us to use the power of biology to produce a drug. It allows us to copy motifs from biology and allows the natural process of antibody formation to create molecules that bind to drug targets. This improves delivery methods that conventional drugs cannot provide. |
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