Educational video's
Click on here to watch the full video Quest for antibodiesThe lifecycle of SARS-CoV-2
Knowing the lifecyle of SARS-CoV-2 is crucial for making drugs against the virus. Maastricht University made this wonderful animation.
Revolutionary RNA drugs (in Dutch)
For most medications, as soon as you take the pill, the active substance spreads crisscrossing your entire body. Usually that's not a problem. But if it causes side effects in some places, it is less pleasant. RNA drugs are the solution. Roy van der Meel (Eindhoven University of Technology) explains in this lecture how this works.
Quest for antibodies - Hecklab
At the interface of art and science - athletic dancing bodies represent the equally flexible antibodies present in our body! Inspired by the research of the Hecklab of Utrecht University, the researchers worked together with video performers from Sensu and the dancers of the Aerialettes, to artistically imagine how we can best detect the best antibodies in our own bodies. to prevent diseases.
This video was made possible with financial support from the Utrecht Molecular Immunology Hub, the Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Hecklab of Utrecht University as well as from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme for the proteomics infrastructure EPIX-XS (823839)
Janssen Pharmaceutics produced a video explaining how drugs are discovered and developed.
The science behind the discovery process in pharmaceutical development.
A research & development process, lasting 14 years on average, will tell us whether a substance can be used safely and efficiently as a medicine. It’s a journey full of science, compassion, precision and responsibility.This Ted talk from Francis Collins, director of the NIH, gives a good overview.
Today we know the molecular cause of 4,000 diseases, but treatments are available for only 250 of them. So what's taking so long? Geneticist and physician Francis Collins explains why systematic drug discovery is imperative, even for rare and complex diseases, and offers a few solutions -- like teaching old drugs new tricks. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
100 Years Medicines
The English physician James LeFanu came up with the following list of medicial breakthroughs that changed society in his book "The rise and fall of modern medicine".
- 1941 Penicillin (bacterial infections)
- 1949 Cortisone (sterile infections)
- 1950 Streptomycin, smoking (epidemiology / trials)
- 1952 Chlorpromazine (psychiatry)
- 1955 Open-heart surgery
- 1963 Kidney transplantation
- 1964 Strokes (prevention)
- 1971 Healing childhood leukemia
- 1978 Test tube baby
- 1984 Helicobacter (ulcers)
In nine of these 10 breakthroughs, medicines were essential.. And even open-heart surgery is not possible without anesthesia drugs. So, without exaggeration it can be stated that medicines have changed society dramatically. But science has changed as well, according to this summary of Nobel prizes for drug research:
- Von Behring, diphtheria antitoxin (1901)
- Fischer, lock-and-key (1902)
- Koch, bacteriology (1905)
- Ehrlich, salvarsan/syphilis (1908)
- Banting/Macleod, insulin/diabetes (1923)
- Wagner/Jauregg, malaria/fever (1928)
- Windaus, vitamin D/rachitis (1928)
- Eijkman, vitamin B1/beri-beri (1929)
- Haworth, vitamin C (1937)
- Domagk, prontosil rubrum/antibacterial (1939)
- Fleming/Chain/Florey, penicillin/antibacterial (1945)
- Kendall/Reichstein/Hench, cortisone/inflammation (1950)
- Waksman, streptomycin/TB (1952)
- Du Vigneaud, oxytocin/childbirth, vasopressin/diuresis (1955)
- Bovet, tubocurarine/nervous system, sulfanilamide/antibacterial, mepyramine/antihistaminic (1957)
- Sanger, insulin structure (1958)
- Woodward, quinine/malaria, estrone/conception (1965)
- Huggins, estrogen/prostate cancer (1966)
- Edelman/Porter, antibodies (1972)
- Bergstrom/Samuelsson/Vane, prostaglandins/inflammation (1982)
- Jerne/Kohler/Millstein, antibody production (1984)
- Hitchings, thioguanine/cancer, 6-mercaptopurine/cancer (1988)
- Elion, azathioprine/immunosuppression, pyrimethamine/malaria (1988)
- Black, propranolol/hypertension, cimetidine/heartburn (1988)
- Marshall, H. pylori/heartburn (2005)
- Fire/Mello, RNAi (2006)
- Hausen, HPV vaccine (2008)
- Lefkowitz, Kobilka, GPCRs/hypertension (2012)
- Gurdon/Yamanaka, iPSC (2012)
- Campbell/Omura, ivermectin/antiparasitic (2015)
- Tu, artemisinin/malaria (2015)
More information on these Nobel prizes can be found here.
More information?
This article briefly described the history of pharmacology in the Netherlands.
Interesting Books
Science
- Galileo’s finger – the ten great ideas of science by Peter Atkins
- Four laws that drive the universe by Peter Atkins
- Eureka’s and euphorias – the Oxford book of scientific anecdotes by Walter Gratzer
- The information - a history, a theory, a flood by James Gleick
Chemistry
- Stories of the invisible – a guided tour of molecules by Philip Ball
- Napoleon's buttons - how 17 molecules changed history by Penny Le Couteur, Jay Burreson
- Molecules that changed the world - a brief history of the art and science of synthesis and Its impact on society by K. C. Nicolaou, Tamsyn Montagnon
Biochemistry
- I wish I’d made you angry earlier by Max Perutz
- The double helix by James Watson
- Avoid boring people by James Watson
Genetics/evolution
- Genome by Matt Ridley
- The rational optimist by Matt Ridley
- The evolution of everything by Matt Ridley
Immunology
- The compatibility gene – how our bodies fight disease, attract others, and define ourselves by Daniel Davies
- A beautiful cure - harnessing your body’s natural defences by Daniel Davies
History of Medicine
- Medical firsts – from Hippocrates to the human genome by Robert Adler
- The rise and fall of modern medicine - Revised Edition by James Le Fanu
- Why we get sick – the new science of Darwinian mediine by Randolph Nesse and George Williams
- A brief history of disease, science and medicine by Michael Kennedy
Infectious disease
- Leven met parasieten by Frans Rochette
- Deadly companions – how microbes shaped our history by Dorothy Crawford
- The invisible enemy – a natural history of viruses by Dorothy Crawford
- The miraculous fever-tree - malaria, medicine and the cure that changed the world by Fiammetta Rocco
- The fever trail - the hunt for the cure for malaria by Mark Honigsbaum
- Living with germs in sickness and in health by John Playfair
Oncology
- The emperor of all maladies – a biography of cancer by Siddharta Mukherjee
- The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
History of drugs
- The quest of tomorrow’s medicines by Jurgen Drews
- The drug book - from arsenic to Xanax, 250 milestones in the history of drugs by Michael C. Gerald
- Molecules that changed the world by K.C. Nicolaou and T. Montagnon
- Molecules and medicine by E. J. Corey, László Kürti, Barbara Czakó
- Laughing gas, Viagra and Lipitor – the human stories behind the drugs we use by Jie Jack Li
Pharma industry
- The billion dollar molecule – one company’s quest for the perfect drug by Barry Werth
- The antidote - inside the world of new pharma by Barry Werth
- Genentech - the beginnings of biotech by Sally Smith Hughes
- The $800 million pill - the truth behind the cost of new drugs by Merrill Goozner
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