pharmocognosy

Pharmacogenomics

Pharmacogenomics is the branch of pharmaceutics which deals with the influence of genetic variation on drug response in patients by correlating gene expressionor single-nucleotide polymorphismswith a drug's efficacyor toxicity. By doing so, pharmacogenomics aims to develop rational means to optimise drug therapy, with respect to the patients' genotype, to ensure maximum efficacy with minimal adverse effects. Such approaches promise the advent of "personalized medicine", in which drugs and drug combinations are optimised for each individual's unique genetic makeup.

Pharmacogenomics is the whole genome application of pharmacogenetics, which examines the single gene interactions with drugs.

Pharmacognosy Today

Prior to the 1950’s every pharmacy student learned about crude drugs in pharmacognosy class. Pharmacognosy includes the study of the proper horticulture, harvesting and uses of the raw medicinals found in nature. Its scope includes the identification or authentication of crude drugs (using macroscopical, microscopical, radiological or chemical methods), and their bio-pharmacological and clinical evaluations.

Most of the pharmacognostic studies are focused on medicinal plants/herbal medicines.

Pharmacognosy is interdisciplinary, drawing from a broad spectrum of biological and even socio-scientific subjects: botany, ethnobotany, herbal medicine, chemistry (phytochemistry), pharmacology, pharmaceutics, clinical pharmacyand pharmacy practicerelated to the evaluation and clinical uses of medicines from natural sources, as well as their implications in health care management and public health.

In a few academic contexts, the term has been artificially extended to cover also the study of pure, isolated substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources (although that should be considered a branch of the organic chemistry known as "natural product chemistry").

Although today pharmacognosy is still taught in a small number of university pharmacy schools in US and in the UK, this subject is still obligatory within the pharmacy curricula in all universities of continental Europe. As more Americans are engaging in the use of herbal medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and other uses of natural products, there is increasing pressure to revive pharmacognosy training in pharmacy and medical schooling.

Biotechnology

Biological technology is technologybased on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. The United NationsConvention on Biological Diversityhas come up with one of many definitions of biotechnology:

"Biotechnology means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use."

Before the 1970s, the term, biotechnology, was primarily used in the food processingand agriculture industries. Since the 1970s, it began to be used by the Western scientific establishment to refer to laboratory-based techniques being developed in biological research, such as recombinant DNAor tissue culture-based processes. In fact, the term should be used in a much broader sense to describe the whole range of methods, both ancient and modern, used to manipulate organicmatter to meet human needs. So the term can be defined as, "The application of indigenous and/or scientific knowledge to the management of (parts of) microorganisms, or of cells and tissues of higher organisms, so that these supply goods and services of use to human beings.

There has been a great deal of talk - and money - poured into biotechnology with the hope that miracle drugs will appear. While there do seem to be a small number of efficacious drugs, in general the biotech revolution has not happened in the pharmaceutical sector. However, recent progress with monoclonal antibody based drugs, such as Genentech's Avastin(tm) suggest that biotech may finally have found a role in pharmaceutical sales.

Biotechnology combines disciplines like genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, embryology and cell biology, which are in turn linked to practical disciplines like chemical engineering, information technology, and robotics.