How medicines act
1 min read7 pages below
Understanding a medicine means understanding its actions, handling by the body, harms and use in particular populations. The parts divide by the pharmacological question or medicine class: reading a new drug’s profile, metabolism, liver injury, use in children and older people, cannabis and psychedelics. Cell-signalling mechanisms, medicine development, disease-specific treatments, biotechnology platforms, pharmacovigilance documents and paediatric regulatory plans belong to neighbouring concerns.
- Reading the pharmacology of a newly approved drug — targets, pharmacokinetics, interactions, harms, dosing, treatment context, effect size and regulatory conditions through worked examples
- Drug metabolism and precision prescribing — variation in response, cytochrome P450 pathways, enzyme inhibition and prescribing guidance
- Drug-induced liver injury and Hy’s Law — detection difficulties, Hy’s Law criteria, liver tests, monitoring and eDISH plots
- Medicines in children — development and drug response, off-label use, pharmacokinetics, extrapolation and trials, and childhood illness and care
- Medicines in older people — evidence and treatment gaps, polypharmacy and medication-related harm, unmet needs and responsibility for improvement
- Medicinal cannabis — plant and compound pharmacology, approved medicines, evidence and harms, production, regulation and public health communication
- Psilocybin and psychedelic medicines — research history, trial effects and adverse effects, production, and medicine status and regulation as of 2023