Pharmacobiotechnology

• Pharmaceutical biotechnology applies biotechnology principles to drug development, with bioformulations like antibodies, nucleic acid products, and vaccines being key products
• Bioformulations are developed through stages including understanding health and disease principles, molecular mechanisms, synthesis and purification of molecules, determining product shelf life, toxicity, and immunogenicity, drug delivery systems, patenting, and clinical trials
• Biotechnology uses biological systems to create products, like wine-making, fermentation for antibiotics, and recombinant DNA technologies
• Recombinant DNA involves inserting DNA from two species into a host organism to create new genetic combinations valuable in science, medicine, agriculture, and industry
• Fields of biotechnology include recombinant DNA technology, molecular biology, DNA alteration, gene splicing, genetic engineering, immunology, and immunopharmacology
• Immunopharmacology applies immunological techniques to study drug effects on the immune system
• Examples of biotechnology-based products include Actimmune®, Betaseron®, Epogen®, KoGENate®, Leukine®, OncoScint® CR/OV, and Proleukin®
• Cloning Vector:

  • Small piece of DNA that can be stably maintained in an organism
  • Foreign DNA fragment can be inserted for cloning purposes
  • May be a plasmid or a bacteriophage
  • Gene resembling a particular protein is joined with a cloning vector to transfer it into a host cell

  
• Hybridization Probes:

  • Complementary sequence of DNA specifically labelled with radioactive, fluorescent, or chromogenic material
  • Used for nucleic acid hybridization and probes
• Cloning Process:

  • Generating genetically identical copies of a cell or organism
  • Happens in nature through asexual replication without genetic alteration
  • Prokaryotic organisms create duplicates using binary fission or budding
  • Eukaryotic organisms have cells that undergo mitosis, except gametes
• Modern pharmacy and biotechnology:

  • Modern drug substances include proteins and peptides
  • Considerations for stability, dosage forms, storage, administration, and side-effects compared to synthetic drug molecules
• Recombinant vaccines:

  • Separate immune activation function of pathogens from disease-producing functions
  • Genes encoding cell surface molecules are isolated and inserted into a cloning vehicle to transform host cells
• Hybridoma technology:

  • Fusion of an immortal cell with a lymphocyte to produce an immortal lymphocyte
  • Antibody-producing cells fused with tumor cells to produce monoclonal antibodies
• Types of traditional vaccines:

  • Living attenuated infectious organisms
  • Infectious agents by chemical or physical means
  • Soluble toxins of microorganisms (toxoids)
  • Substances extracted from infectious agents

  
• DNA probes:

  • Genetic probes used to establish future onset of ailments like emphysema and Huntington’s disease

  
• Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) Analysis:

  • Diagnosis of genetic defects prenatally
  • Detects diseases like schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and heart complications

  
• Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA):

  • Review the principles of ELISA