Model Questions for Pharmacology

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Model Questions for Pharmaceutical Microbiology (Food Microbiology)

1. What are the sources of impurities in pharmaceutical products? 
2. Explain the “bio-assay” linking with it to the drug discovery process. 
3. Highlight about the spoilage of pharmaceutical raw materials. 
4. What is pharmacopoeia and monograph development? Highlight about it in the context of Nepal.
5. Mention some quality assurance and management practices for pharmaceutical products. 
6. Describe preservation methods of pharmaceutical products. 
7. What are the factors affecting microbial spoilage of pharmaceutical products? How the humidity is crucial for it? 
8. What are the biological indicators of sterilization? Explain any two of them. 
9. Explain some methods of testing for the presence of antibiotics in meat. 
10. Explain some in vitro assays that are useful in drug discovery. 


11. What are the routes of drug administration?
12. What is pharmacodynamics? Explain with paracetamol (acetaminophen).
13. What are the "potency and efficacy" of drug? Explain with examples.
14. What is therapeutic index? Explain and draw a graph for warfarin.
15. How can we select a molecule to be taken as a medicine? Explain some theoretical aspects.


16. What are the components of augmentin? Explain the mode of action of augmentin. 
17. What are the criteria to select the antibiotics as the drug of choice? 
18. Enlist some biological sources and the antibiotics extracted/isolated from them. 
19. What are super-bugs? “Overuse of antibiotics may create super-bugs.” Explain the statement.
20. Describe the MIC and MBC. Explain some methods of searching new antibacterials.

How the World of Medicine is Changing Today

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Each day the pharmaceutical industry is making further strides in creating medicines to help a variety of different ailments. In the past 100 years, medication has gone from helping people live to be 50 to helping people live until 80 and beyond. Why is this? It is because the pharmaceutical industry is constantly developing even better medications and with better medication comes the possibility of a longer life span. The world of medicine is constantly evolving and here are some of the ways medication is evolving today.

1. Choice
From medications that help control the symptoms of diabetes to inhalers that help asthmatic people breathe, the pharmaceutical industry has created a variety of different medications to help alleviate the symptoms associated with many common illnesses. This means people have more choice when choosing medications. This is a great change from the medications of years past.

2. Availability
In today's world of medicine, it is now possible to help those in disease stricken countries obtain the medications they need for a healthier population of people. Each day, more and more people in poor countries are receiving the medication they need to survive.

3. Vaccines
The pharmaceutical industry is constantly coming up with vaccines that can help protect against a variety of different diseases and illnesses. Since the flu shot to vaccines that helps prevent girls from contracting HPV, the world of medicine is always researching and creating new vaccines. The vaccines of today are more advanced than the vaccines of years gone by.

4. Compounding Results
Because of advances in medicine, people have more options when it comes to taking care of their health. When people realize there are a variety of treatment options for what ails them, it may encourage them to get the help they need to manage their illness. This in turn will create a healthier population of people. In years gone by, people did not have the healthiest options available today and that is a major change in medicine.

5. Where the Heart is
Heart disease is a major problem for many people. Because of this, plenty of research has been done to help make heart surgery more successful. Many people may one day require heart surgery and with changes in medicine, it is more likely that the surgery will be a success.

6. Wellness
One major change in medicine that is certain to gain more attention in the years to come is the ability to monitor at risk individuals before they get sick. Through the use of genomic medicine, it may one day be possible to predict a disease before it occurs so a person can take preventive measures that may stop the disease ahead of time.

Modern-day medicine is changing constantly. As a result, people are experiencing longevity and a higher quality of life. Thanks to advances in medical technology, the world of medicine is evolving for the better on an almost daily basis - as can be seen by the examples listed above. Now all we have to do is wait for whatever is the next :)

This is guest post by Jenna Hayworth who writes about health, current events & more here.

Identification of Beta-lactamase Inhibitor; a Strategy for Drug Development against Antibiotics Resistant Bacteria

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Introduction:                                                                             By Bishnu Marasini

       The most threatening to human health is due to bacterial infection and intensive research has been addressing to treat these maladies since the known history. The infectious bacteria are microscopic, unicellular prokaryotes and different than mammalian eukaryotic cells. The outer layer of the bacterial cell consists of cell wall which is not found in mammalian cell and can be taken as target for development of bactericidal agents. The finding of clear zone of inhibition of bacterial culture around the growth of Penicillium notatum in the experiment of Alexander Fleming in 1928 was the positive indication to get rid of such threat.

       Nowadays almost all bacterial infection can be cured using antibiotics. The world consumes tons of antibiotics per year and half of them are beta-lactam type e.g. penicillin, amoxicillin, cephalosporin, cephalexin, cefixime, ceftriaxome, monobactam, carbapenem, methicillin etc. Beta-lactam antibiotics have broad spectrum activity, economical friendly on production, good safety profile, have clinical efficacy. It is also target specific for prokaryotic cells, little side effects except some allergic reaction. So, it has gained wide popularity.

       One of the components of bacterial cell wall is peptidoglycan which is cross linked polymer of repeatedly units of N-acetylglucosamine (NAG) and N-acetylmuramic acid (NAM). The final step in cell wall biosynthesis is transamidation reaction catalyzed by the enzyme cell wall transamidase (CWT) also called as penicillin binding protein (PBP). This enzyme helps to cross link the polymer of NAG and NAM. The highly strained and reactive beta-lactam ring of the antibiotics reacts and binds irreversibly with the serine hydroxyl group of PBP (shown in figure 1) which inactivates the enzyme and ultimately death of bacteria (Frère et al, 1984; Tipper and Strominger, 1965).

Figure1: Binding of β-lactam Ring with Penicillin Binding Protein

       However, beta-lactam antibiotics are becoming ineffective against pathogenic bacteria. The most common reason is due to the production of beta-lactamase enzyme (EC 3.5.2.6) which catalyze the hydrolysis of the antibiotics i.e., formation of carboxyl group degrading beta-lactam ring (Shown in figure 2). Hydrolyzed antibiotics lose its activity or binding affinity towards the PBP hence no effect against bacteria. Hydrolysis of beta-lactam is rapid by beta-lactamase than binding of beta-lactam to PBP (Bush 1988). 

Figure 2: Degradation of β-lactam ring by β-lactamase enzyme

       The beta-lactamse (penicillinase) was reported just few years after the first antibiotic discovered (Abraham and Chain, 1940). Although penicillin is the oldest antibiotic and most of the organisms acquired resistant, it is first therapeutic choice in some diseases like syphilis. Beta-lactamse enzyme is an extra cellular enzyme in Gram-positive bacteria and found in periplasmic membrane in Gram-negative bacteria (Bowden and Georgiou, 1990; Dyke and Richmond, 1967). More than 200 types of beta-lactamse have been found (Bush et al, 1995). The difference among them is only the catalytic efficacy and turn over rate range from 0.004 to 1,200 molecules per second by 1 molecule of enzyme. Among them two types i.e. penicillinase and cephalosporinase type has a potent influence on the profile of the beta-lactam resistant antibiotics. Class A beta-lactamse has high affinity towards penicillin G but low affinity towards cephalosporin while class C beta-lactamse has opposite. Class B beta-lactamse hydrolyze the antibiotics by binding with the co-factor zinc (Zn) and class A, C and D hydrolyze by binding through serine residue of it to beta-lactam ring (Sawai et al, 1981). Beta-lactamase became widespread via the mechanism of plasmid exchange/insert among the pathogens (Sykes and Richmond, 1970). The rapid spread and evolution of these enzymes have seriously threatened the present antimicrobial arsenal.

       Two strategies have been developed to combat the problem of resistant. The first approach has been the synthesis/production of beta-lactamase resistant antibiotics e.g. penicillinase resistant beta-lactam antibiotics, nafcillin, oxacillin, ceftriaxone, cefoxitime, aztreonam, imipenem etc. But after few exposure to pathogens these antibiotics also become susceptible to extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) produced by multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens.

       The second approach is to use beta-lactamase inhibitors coupled with beta-lactam antibiotics. These enzyme inhibitors function to permanently inactivate the beta-lactamase in the periplasmic space so that the partner antibiotics can reach its target, penicillin binding protein (PBP). Broad spectrum beta-lactam antibiotics plus beta-lactamase inhibitors combination have been found good safety records and clinical efficacies (Munoz et al, 1996). Augmentin, the production of GlaxoSmithKline which is composed of amoxicillin and clavulanate in 2:1; Timentin (ticarcillin and clavulanate); Sultamicillin (ampicillin and sulbactam) are examples of beta-lactamase inhibitors in combination with beta-lactam used clinically. Clavulanate exhibited clinical efficacy than others and used as standard inhibitor. However, clavulanate was not found so effective against class C beta-lactamase (cephalorinase type) (Bush K, 1989). It also exhibited side effects on the long term of use like liver function destruction, gastrointestinal toxicity etc. (Ioannidis et al, 2002). Also it contains beta-lactam ring it and may be susceptible to beta-lactamase enzyme in upcoming days as broad spectrum beta-lactam antibiotics which were resistant to beta-lactamase, now become susceptible.