Aspirin to Zoloft: The Scoop on 5 Medicines

Thursday, August 29, 2013 SPORK! 0 Comments


Emily Carlson, National Institutes of Health   |   August 14, 2013 11:49am

A pile of pills of various shapes and colors.

Ways Medicines Work 


Most medicines work by binding to and modifying the actions of proteins, tiny molecular machines that perform important cellular tasks. Details about protein structure and function help scientists develop medicines that block proteins or otherwise interact with them. But even when a drug is designed to target a specific protein, it can sometimes impact others, causing side effects. The way medicines work also can be influenced by how a person's body absorbs and processes them.

Findings from research funded by the National Institutes of Health have shed light on how some common medicines work.
1. Antibiotics, Antivirals
Antibiotics and antiviral drugs attack proteins that are only found in the targeted bacterium or virus and that are crucial for the pathogen's survival or multiplication. In many cases, the targets are enzymes, which are proteins that speed up chemical reactions. The antibiotic penicillin, for example, hones in on an enzyme that builds bacterial cell walls, causing infecting bacteria to burst and die. Protease inhibitors like saquinavir shut down an enzyme that would otherwise help HIV spread in the body.
Read the full list at Live Science 

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