During the first week of rotation, I assisted one of the graduate fellows, João, on the project Powdered medicinal milks for oral delivery of drugs in paediatrics (MedMilk). As a part of my first week, I learned about the confidentiality of research in respect to non-human subjects. Previously, my interactions with confidentiality of information have primarily been focused upon patients or research involving patient information (i.e. chart reviews, health questionnaires). Upon making my first attempt at writing this blog post, I simply did as I normally do for this blog and detailed what exactly I had been doing in the laboratory for this project. Then it came to my attention that this could potentially be a breach in confidentiality of the project’s integrity. Although we have no human subjects whose names, birth dates, past medical history, etc. must be kept known to only those directly involved in patient care, there is still a standard of confidentiality applied. This is partially due to the fact that the world of research, drug design and development, is highly competitive. If information relating a group’s project were to be replicated and published by a different research team, the credit for this work could be assigned elsewhere from the original group. Additionally, another motivating factor for confidentiality pertains to the process of obtaining a patent. In order for a patent to be granted, there are several requirements such as novelty of idea, an innovative step, capable of being useful, considered patentable under law, and reproducible. Patents provide incentive to society for inventing by providing exclusivity rights which can translate into monetary gain. To be granted a patent, it cannot be information that is widely available. If there were to be a leak of research information or something published publicly that compromises the integrity of the project it could result in the loss of patent rights. Without the patent, there is no longer profit incentive for a researcher or pharmaceutical company to continue the project. Therefore, even though what I have been working on is intriguing and exciting (to me at least), I will not be able to share the intimate details of my daily lab work. Instead of talking about the details of the projects I will be working on I am going to focus the rotation portion of this blog on different assays and analytical methods that are used in drug design and development laboratories. These tests are necessary to characterize the substances that make up medications. By understanding the properties of the “medication ingredients” we can have a better idea of how the medication will work in the body. In pharmacy terms we usually refer to pharmacokinetics as what the body does to a drug. This describes the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of a drug upon entering the body whether it is by the oral, transdermal, parenteral, or any other route of administration. After that, pharmacodynamics comes into play, also known as what the drug does to the body. This term is related to the desired effect or outcome of taking the medication, for example, how Tylenol (acetaminophen) works on the body to relieve pain and reduce fever. All of the processes related to both pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics can be influenced by a multitude of variables such as genetics, age, organ function, and body composition. Therefore, the more we know about how a drug behaves under various circumstances, the better we can predict how we think it will act in patients. Contact Angle and Wetting PropertiesWhen a liquid comes into contact with a solid substance, the interaction between the two results from a contact angle. This term helps indicate the wettability of a substance, or the ability of a liquid to spread out on and adhere to a solid substance. For example, a powder should be wettable to easily dissolve into a solution. In order for a substance to be considered wettable, the contact angle must be <90°. An angle of >90° indicates that the substance is not wettable. For a powder that is non-wettable to dissolve into solution a wetting agent, or another substance that is added to the powder, would be used to change the properties and allow dissolution. Measuring the contact angle of a solid with several liquids can reveal the surface free energy of the solid, which is similar to the surface tension a liquid displays. The classic example of surface tension of a liquid is placing drops of water on top of a penny until a dome of water forms that exceeds the edges of the penny due to intramolecular attraction. The same idea can be applied to the surface of a solid through the surface free energy to indicate the characteristic intermolecular interactions occurring. A contact angle can be measured several ways, one of which is through a dynamic contact angle method. The solid substance is dipped into the liquid substance to generate the advancing contact angle, on the way into the liquid, and the receding contact angle, on the way out of the liquid. With the Wilhelmy plate method, the force required to insert the solid, placed on a vertically suspended plate, into the liquid surface is used to calculate the contact angle. In order to perform this test, advanced equipment, such as a force tensiometer, is utilized for precision and accuracy in measurements. You can see a picture of the one we have available in our lab to the left. Behind the glass doors, the clip in the middle holds the sample of the solid being tested with the liquid in the glass cup below. The pedestal on which the liquid is set lowers up and down to insert and withdrawal the solid sample into/from the liquid using the remote control pictured on the right of the machine. I was very pleased the other day when João remarked that the contact angle samples I had prepared were testing very well and followed the pattern he was expecting. He even told me I could stay in Portugal to continue to help as long as I would like! I am tempted to take him up on this offer… Additional available reading: Contact Angle and Wetting Properties
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AuthorCheck out the About Me tab for a brief self-biography of Valerie Nolt. Archives
August 2015
Categories"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world."
- Gustave Flaubert |