Periodic - Als - News and MOLECULE
Periodic-als Science in the News
Topic Selected: Pharmaceuticals
Why did you select this topic?
Cause I take a probiotic on a daily basis and I’d like to know what is in it.
Why is this topic currently a news headline?
Facts Source 1
Source 1 Title: Drugs - Pharmaceuticals
MLA Citation: "Drugs (Pharmaceuticals)." Drugs. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
- Twelve active ingredients were involved in almost half of hospitalizations of children for prescription drug poisoning, a new study found.
- National Transportation Safety Board study reports that pilots killed in airplane crashes in 2012 tested positive for drug four times more often than those killled in 1990.
- New health start-up Iodine uses online surveys to compile data on Americans’ experiences while taking prescription medications; goal is to help other prospective users educate themselves through drug-taking information and advice.
- Food and Drug Administration approves drug Belsomra, new type of sleeping pill designed to help people with insomnia stay asleep
- Food and Drug Administration is permitting second experimental drug from Tekmira
- New research adds to evidence that long-term use of some sedatives may be hazardous for older adults.
- Carl Zimmer Matter column observes that microbes in external environment have produced many chemicals used to make lifesaving drugs, and notes research showing potential of bacteria in human body to do same
- Drug Enforcement Administration, in effort to reduce stockpile of of unneeded medicines in homes, announces new regulation that allows consumers to return unused prescription medications that are designated as controlled substances to pharmacies.
- Federal authorities make first arrest in case of New England Compounding Center, whose tainted steroid pain medication killed dozens of people nationwide in 2012
- Public health authorities wrestle with complex questions surrounding decision to possibly dispatch experimental Ebola medications to countries in Africa afflicted with virus
- San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceuticals is focused on how to manufacture more of so-called secret serum ZMapp, which is being used for the first time to treat American patients infected with Ebola virus
- Health insurers, unnerved by flurry of spending on compounded drugs, are moving to curb their use by discontinuing coverage of myriad ingredients used in compounding.
- Research published in The New England Journal of Medicine finds that new experimental drug has shown striking efficacy in prolonging lives of people with heart failure; developed by Novartis and known by code name LCZ696, drug could replace longstanding treatment for a condition that is the leading cause of hospitalization in United States and Europe.
- Food and Drug Administration approves Keytruda, first of eagerly awaited new class of cancer drugs that unleashes the body's immune system to fight tumors; manufactured by Merck, drug is approved for patients with advanced melanoma who have exhausted other therapies.
- Food and Drug Administration approves Avastin, drug made by Genentech, for use against late-stage cervical cancer; approval marks seventh approved use for biotech drug.
Facts Source 2
Source 2 Title: PHARMACEUTICALS: FACTS, POLICIES AND NCSL RESOURCESMLA Citation:
1, "PHARMACEUTICALS: Facts, Policies and NCSL Resources."PHARMACEUTICALS: Facts, Policies and NCSL Resources. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.,
2, "IVL." Disturbing Facts about Drug Sales by Big Pharmaceuticals. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
- In 2012 prescription drug spending is estimated to have accounted for $260.8 billion in health spending
- In 2014 prescription drug spending growth is projected to accelerate to 5.2 percent
- Through 2022... the proportion of generic drugs dispensed is anticipated to level off at roughly 85 percent, pushing average prescription drug prices up."
- Authors calculated that more than 50 percent of prescriptions actually cost patients less than $5 for out-of-pocket payments in 2013
- Reports Traditional Drug Trend Increased by Just 0.8 Percent in 2013 While Overall Prescription Drug Trend is Up 3.8 Percent, with specialty drugs up 15.6 percent from 2012
- Specialty drugs costs rose 14.1% in 2013.
- total spending on drug therapy total about $300 billion dollars,
- Over-the-counter (OTC) drug remedies, are valued at 31 billion.
- Common biologic medicines in use today include human growth hormone, injectable treatments for arthritis and psoriasis
- Hepatitis B vaccine and stem cell therapy
- Regulating biologics raises new issues for both state and federal policymakers because of their complexity
- In the dozen years between 2001 and 2012, at least 38 states had passed some type of state pharmaceutical assistance law and four others had executive agency initiatives, for a total of 42 states with assistance programs enacted or authorized
- The pharmaceutical industry is currently urging the Supreme Court to grant them blanket immunity for any drugs sold which would do away with all testing requirements and quality control measures.
- Because 93% of companies manufacturing drugs outside the U. S. are never inspected by the FDA, many brand-name drugs are tainted with metal shavings, chemicals, paint chips and other contaminants. Also, inspections are limited on the drugs coming into the country - there are more inspections required for imported orchids than there are for imported medications!
- It has been speculated that one in seven scientists know colleagues who have “invented” positive results of tested medications, and roughly 46% know of fellow scientists who have engaged in questionable practices like altering the conclusions of drug studies due to funding pressures.
Periodic - Als - Molecule
Periodic-als Molecule Profile
Molecule Selected: Penicillin
Why did you select this Molecule?
Because I know it saved many american lives in WWII, thought that was pretty awesome.
How is this Molecule important/relevant to your life?
Well I’ve had 4 ear infection, including the one that sparked my recent viral infection. So doing antibiotics (Penicillin) lets me learn more about them.
Facts Source 1
Source 1 Title: Penicillin. The First Miracle Drug
MLA Citation: "Penicillin: The First Miracle Drug." Penicillin: The First Miracle Drug. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2014.
- Antibiotics are chemicals, effective at very low concentrations, created as part of the life process of one organism, which can kill or stop the growth of a disease-causing microbe--a germ.
- In 1929, Alexander Fleming, a doctor and researcher at St. Mary's Hospital in London, England, published a paper on a chemical he called "penicillin", which he had isolated from from a mold, Penicillium notatum. Penicillin, Fleming wrote, had prevented the growth of a neighboring colony of germs in the same petri dish.
- Dr. Fleming was never able to purify his samples of penicillin, but he became the first person to publish the news of its germ-killing power. Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley expanded on Fleming's work in 1938, at Oxford University. They and their staff developed methods for growing, extracting and purifying enough penicillin to prove its value as a drug.
- World War II (1939-1945) had begun by the time their research was showing results. The main research and production was moved to the United States in 1941, to protect it from the bombs pounding England.
- Work began on how to grow the mold efficiently to make penicillin in the large quantities that would be needed for thousands of soldiers. As the destruction of the war grew, so did interest in penicillin in laboratories, universities and drug companies on both sides of the Atlantic.
- Creating the right environment for growth was the first step in producing enough penicillin to be used as a drug. In Oxford, experiments showed that Penicillium notatum grew best in small shallow containers on a broth of nutrients.
- Penicillium need lots of air.
- Formerly considered a waste material, corn steep liquor became a crucial ingredient in the large-scale production of penicillin.
- Scientists were also determined to find another strain of Penicillium that might grow better in the huge deep fermentation tanks. Army pilots sent back soil samples from all over the world to be tested for molds.
- In 1943, laboratory worker Mary Hunt brought in an ordinary supermarket cantaloupe infected with a mold that had "a pretty, golden look." This Penicillium species, Penicillium chrysogenum grew so well in a tank that it more than doubled the amount of penicillin produced.
- Penicillin kills by preventing some bacteria from forming new cell walls. One by one, the bacteria die because they cannot complete the process of division that produces two new "daughter" bacteria from a single "parent" bacterium.
- Some bacteria are able to resist the action of antibiotic drugs, including penicillin. Antibiotic resistance occurs because not all bacteria of the same species are alike
- Taking antibiotics for viral illnesses like colds can also cause antibiotic resistant bacteria to develop. Antibiotics have no effect on viruses, but it will kill off harmless and even the beneficial bacteria living in the patient's body.
- Patients with bacterial infections, who don't finish their antibiotic prescriptions completely, also allow resistant bacteria to develop. This happens because a small number of semi-resistant bacteria, which needed the full course of antibiotics to kill them, survive. Instead of being a small part of the bacteria causing an infection, the more resistant bacteria take over when sensitive bacteria are killed by the antibiotic.
- Today, in the United States, deaths by infectious bacterial diseases are only one-twentieth of what they were in 1900, before any antibiotic chemicals had been discovered. The main causes of death today are what are referred to as "the diseases of old age": heart disease, kidney disease and cancer. We would be shocked to hear of someone dying from an infection that started in a scratch, but, before antibiotics like penicillin, it was common for people to die from such infections.
Facts Source 2
Source 2 Title: The Challenge of Mass Production
MLA Citation: .., and Alexander Fleming. "The Challenge of Mass Production." Fact Sheet: The Challenge of Mass Production (n.d.): n. pag. Web.
- A total of 21 U.S. companies joined together, producing 2.3 million doses of penicillin in preparation of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
- Penicillin quickly became known as the war’s “miracle drug,” curing infectious disease and saving millions of lives.
- In 1945, Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Chain, Sir Howard Florey were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases.”
- Upon returning to his disorganized lab from a weekend vacation, Fleming noticed that one of the Petri dishes was uncovered and a blue-green mold was growing inside. Rather than tossing the contaminated dish into the trash, he looked carefully and observed that the mold had killed bacteria growing nearby. Quite by accident Fleming had discovered penicillin
- Florey and Chain were interested in Alexander Fleming’s work and in 1938, began studying the antibacterial properties of mold. Chain began by purifying and concentrating the penicillin “juice” through a complex and tiring process of freeze drying the product repeatedly.
- “After supper with some friends, I returned to the lab and met the professor to give a final dose of penicillin to two of the mice. The 'controls' were looking very sick, but the two treated mice seemed very well. I stayed at the lab until 3:45am, by which time all four control animals were dead.”
- Florey and Heatley travelled to the U.S. in July of 1941 to continue research and seek help from the American pharmaceutical industry. They convinced four drug companies, Merck, E. R. Squibb & Sons, Charles Pfizer & Co., and Lederle Laboratories, to aid in the production of penicillin.
- Penicillin was used to cure the first human bacterial infection, proving to researchers the vital importance of the drug to save lives. But, that one cure used up the entire supply of penicillin in the entire U.S!
- Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, it was clear to scientists and military strategists that a combined effort was needed to produce the large amounts of penicillin needed to win the war.
- Florey and Heatley ended up in Peoria, Illinois to work with researchers who had perfected the fermentation process necessary for growing penicillin.